Photo: Chris Steller

Saying it protects the free market, U.S. Sen. Al Franken sounded optimistic in a speech today about the chances for preserving net neutrality by law. “For the first time, it looks like we might actually do this,” Franken told the Future of Music Coalition in Washington, D.C.

In his speech (pdf), Franken laid out the problem this way:

Right now, a blog loads just as quickly as a corporate webpage. … But recently, business executives from top ISPs have declared their interest in offering, quote, “prioritized” Internet service to companies who can pay for it. … That would transform the Internet from a free, open, and competitive playing field into a “pay-for-play” arena in which citizen bloggers, nonprofits, and small businesses are simply outgunned by major media conglomerates.

The stakes are high, Franken said:

As noisy and messy as it may be, the Internet is a democracy. And because of that, it is a critical part of our democracy. But, in the absence of strong legislation prohibiting ISPs from regulating content, that may not always be the case.

Net neutrality is especially important to people in rural areas who don’t have a choice of internet service providers, Franken said, and to people with unpopular ideas — ideas that are unpopular with their ISPs, anyway:

First, you may remember that in 2007, Verizon refused to allow the pro-choice group NARAL to send text messages to its supporters – even though they had signed up to receive them. Verizon’s explanation was that it had the right to block “controversial or unsavory” messages. Like, for example, that a woman should have control of her reproductive system. …

It is a twenty-first century reiteration of one of our most important constitutional rights – the right to free speech.

And it doesn’t interfere with the free market. It protects the free market.

Franken’s confidence arises from support he sees at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the White House, Congress, and even the U.S. Supreme Court, where he probed now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the issue during her confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He mentioned that today:

I asked her specifically about whether she thought that the American public has a compelling First Amendment interest in ensuring the Internet stays open and accessible. And if I could paraphrase her answer, it was “yes.”

Such is the life of a senator: only Sunday he shared a stage in Minneapolis with the president of Somalia, Sharif Sheik Ahmed, and today he’s on stage in the nation’s capital with the bassist of R.E.M., Mike Mills.

That was good for a few cracks from Franken about Mills’ little-known band: “I’ve had my eye on these guys, REM, and they’re going to take off — you just watch.”

But Franken made no mention of an R.E.M. song that Mills is said to have written, “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?” The song was inspired by the 1986 attack on former CBS anchorman Dan Rather in which the question in the song’s title was hurled at Rather by his assailants — one of whom allegedly suffered from the belief that TV networks were trying to control him.

Kline gave the GOP response to President Obama’s weekly address, reaching a bit for Labor Day relevance by tying fears about health care reform to fears about job losses. (Gov. Pawlenty had his turn delivering the Republican message last April before another holiday — Tax Day.)

It’s a new role for Kline, a strong, silent type whose conservative credentials helped him leapfrog more senior Republicans in June to become the ranking member on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Now he’s the GOP’s official point man attacking Democrats’ efforts to reform health care — though he’s outdone almost daily by his colleague in Minnesota’s Congressional delegation: Michele Bachmann.

She held a townhall on the topic; he won’t. But the man who once carried the suitcase containing the presidential Denny’s-style menu for nuclear war told a telephone townhall meeting that Senate Democrats passing health care reform by simple majority would be “the nuclear option, because it would cause the Senate to explode.”

The video of Kline’s Republican address is below. Here are the main themes:

Be very afraid

American families are worried … If you think that’s frightening, I’m sorry to say it could get even worse … No wonder Americans are scared … They also fear, and rightly so …

Au revoir, doc

What will happen to my coverage, and my choice of doctors? … the comfort of a familiar physician … Democrats’ plans may cost patients the right to see their family doctor …

Did I mention the re-set button?

It’s time to press the ‘reset’ button … It’s not too late to start over … honor American workers by hitting the ‘reset’ button on health care reform …

Minnesota’s two Democratic senators, Franken and Amy Klobuchar, both voted “aye,” with Franken’s “aye” resonating more loudly than those spoken from the floor because he spoke it into the Senate president’s microphone. Eight Republicans joined Senate Democrats in voting for Sotomayor’s confirmation. 

Then after calling for any senators who wished to vote or change their minds, Franken announced the final tally, that Sotomayor was confirmed as a Justice and that the president (of the United States) would be immediately notified.

Then Majority Leader Reid made a routine parliamentary move, triggering a roll call by suggesting the absence of a quorum.

That inspired a Franken chuckle, as the Senate floor actually remained packed.

It’s a training exercise for junior senators to sit in as president; according to spokeswoman Jess McIntosh, this was Franken’s second stint with the gavel.

And today he used it — rapping the rostrum to interrupt Sen. Jeff Sessions and announce the order of speakers: Sessions, Sen. Patrick Leahy,  Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Harry Reid.

For a guy who only a week or two ago didn’t seem to know how to get a committee chair’s attention or put a document into the record, Franken displayed considerable parliamentary aplomb this afternoon, authoritatively intoning such standard utterances as ”The clerk will call the roll,” “Without objection,” and “The Senate will suspend the rules.”

U.S. Sen. Al Franken, calling himself “a voice for the overwhelming majority of Americans who aren’t lawyers” on the Senate floor Wednesday night, continued his harsh critique of the U.S. Supreme Court, lambasting its recent record of overturning its own precedents:

Again, I think that this is judicial activism. In fact, I think it’s judicial activism in one direction — away from long-standing protections for the individual and towards a more friendly law for the powerful.

Franken endorsed high-court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, praising her “inherent judicial restraint” and promising that “a vote for Judge Sotomayor is a vote against judicial activism.”

Franken, one of a half-dozen non-lawyers on the Senate Judiciary Committee, used legalese like stare decisis to attack a series of high-court rulings from the last five years on such issues as workers’ rights, voting rights, price-fixing, campaign finance and securities regulation.

But he described those decisions — some well-known, some not — in terms of how they affect the daily lives of Americans, particularly Minnesotans.

Indeed, the Senate’s freshest freshman seemed to have tailored his talk to Minnesotan citizens, mentioning his home state 16 times in the course of his 16-minute speech (pdf). He used the state’s gender-gap (women earn 74 cents to every men’s dollar) and cited Minnesota’s own homegrown Ponzi schemer (Tom Petters) alongside the nationally known Bernie Madoff. Also getting shout-outs were Minnesota’s older workers, working women, investors and small-business owners.

Franken’s speech was an extended followup — measured but not tempered — to his fiery five-minute remarks during the Judiciary Committee hearings last week. Here’s the video, via C-SPAN:

Whose dulcet tones stirred Minnesota’s senior senator from her sleep? It was probably Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but it could just as well have been been Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

Rather than hit the snooze button or throw the clock across the room, Klobuchar reported to work, where she led an hour’s worth of speeches in support of Sotomayor from Democratic women senators: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Kirsten Gillebrand of New York, and Patty Murray of Washington State.

Klobuchar served as emcee, introducing each speaker, providing segues and delivering her own impassioned remarks on behalf of Sotomayor. Among several letters of support she read was one from former FBI director (and judge) Louis Freeh, who cited the example of a Minnesota-born former U.S. Supreme Court justice, Edward Devitt.

Klobuchar repeated parts of her statement during the Judiciary Committee hearings on the Sotomayor nomination last week, including her tale of meeting an airport worker at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who asserted Sotomayor “always lets her feeling get in the way of the law.”

With reference to the travails of female trailblazers of jurisprudence such as Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Klobuchar said, “We’ve come a long way.”

With reference to senators who have said they’ll oppose Sotomayor, Klobuchar added, “I hope my colleagues will also come a long way.”

Update: Here are video clips from Klobuchar’s remarks:

Photo: The UpTake

Anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life called on Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken to reverse their Senate Judiciary Committee votes to approve Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday. In a letter to the senators, MCCL said that a legal board that Sotomayor once sat on advocated abortion rights.

“While Judge Sotomayor served on the governing board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF), the PRLDEF was actively involved in litigation that attempted to advance the abortion agenda,” wrote Scott Fischbach, executive director of MCCL. “In fact, briefs that were filed by PRLDEF at the time urged the Court to regard abortion as a ‘fundamental right.’”

Despite the association outlined by Fischbach, Sotomayor has not yet ruled on an abortion or reproductive rights case.

“Women and unborn children in Minnesota have suffered long enough from the devastating results of Roe v. Wade and deserve a United States Supreme Court that will protect them from an aggressive abortion industry,” Fischbach wrote in the letter to Franken and Klobuchar.

MCCL’s letter is unlikely to change any positions. Both Franken and Klobuchar have indicated their support for reproductive rights as well as reducing the need for abortion through family planning.

Photos: Chris Steller/MnIndy, wdcpix

Al Franken spewed fire and Amy Klobuchar threw brimstone this morning at the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Minnesotans joined 10 other Democrats and one Republican in approving the nominee, but not before Franken raked the current Court and Klobuchar decried bias against women on the bench (video).

Franken was the last senator to speak before the vote, but his statement was perhaps the most arresting as he threw off the mild-mannered mantle of a first-month senator and threw down a gauntlet over high-court rulings he termed “judicial activism.”

It was a theme that he struck more tentatively during committee hearings and today promised to revisit when the nomination reaches the Senate floor.

“Individual rights, individual protections and individual liberties” are under attack by the current Supreme Court, Franken asserted, pointedly citing other senators on specific high-court rulings with which he found fault.

With a vehemence not yet seen in his short tenure in Washington, D.C., Franken took issue with rulings on abortion, voting rights, price fixing, age discrimination, and corporate entanglement in elections.

Noting how court actions have overturned or threatened even recent precedent, Franken said, emphatically, “This is judicial activism. This is a court that’s willing to reverse itself … to achieve its own agenda of what is right. … A vote for Sonia Sotomayor is a vote against judicial activism.”

Minutes earlier, Klobuchar cast Sotomayor as an Everywoman Jurist whose image had been misrepresented by Republicans harping on her now-infamous “wise Latina” statement.

“She knows the law, she knows the Constitution, but she also knows America,” Klobuchar said to both open and close her comments.

Klobuchar said she had bristled at “mostly anonymous question[ing of] Judge Sotomayor’s judicial temperament” and cited her own experience in Minnesota: “Where I come from, asking tough questions and showing very little patience for unprepared lawyers is the very definition of a judge.”

Sexist standards implicit in such critiques “irritated me,” Klobuchar said, adding that the country should ”appoint as many gruff, to-the-point female judges as gruff, to-the-point male judges.”

This morning’s vote was historic for Minnesota: It’s the first time a Democratic senator from the state (let alone two) has cast a vote on a Supreme Court nominee as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Wisconsin is the only other state with two senators on the committee, also both Democrats. Together the two neighboring states accounted for four of the 13 votes that sent Sotomayor’s nomination on to the full Senate.

Here’s the video of Franken:

And here’s Klobuchar:

The clip was 18 years old yet couldn’t have been more timely — or uncanny. It showed Franken portraying Simon during a Senate Judicary Committee hearing on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, just as the current Franken was playing himself, as a real senator, during hearings on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Earlier all that was available online was the transcript of the sketch. Then on July 17 the Economist’s Democracy in America blog noted that “NBC has finally re-released the video.”

The clip was posted at Hulu.com, a site that NBC co-owns. But by July 19, the video had been removed. Did Franken use the power of his office to get the network to make unavailable his past violation of the senatorial solemnity?

“No,” responded Franken spokeswoman Jess McIntosh to a Minnesota Independent inquiry.

NBC won’t comment on who decided to post the Franken-as-Simon video — or to take it down. Sharon Pannozzo, the network’s East Coast entertainment publicity director, said by email that the length of time NBC shows remain posted at Hulu varies, and brief appearances — some as short as 24 hours — are “very common.”

That leaves fans of Franken’s screen humor to scan the likes of YouTube, where SNL clips are quickly removed but random gems like a recently uploaded scene from the 1976 movie “Tunnel Vision” sometimes reappear.

In a letter to Warner Brothers Chairman and CEO Barry M. Meyer, Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Reps. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., John Boozman, R-Ark., and Danny Davis, D-Ill., wrote that the film’s depiction of adopted children was inaccurate and destructive.

“[M]ost adoptive parents would take issue with the movie’s message that an adopted child is not ‘one’s own’ since the only distinction between biological and adopted children is how they came to be a member of a family,” said the letter signed by Bachmann, who this month was appointed to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute’s Advisory Board.

Particularly, the members of Congress objected to a line in the movie’s trailer: “It must be hard to love an adopted child as much as your own.”

Warner Brothers says they’ve removed that line.

The trailer:

Partial text of the letter sent to Warner Brothers:

While we understand the movie may be intended as a far-fetched thriller, its trailer contains images and messages about adopted youth that are inaccurate.

…While these children often come from troubled families, they have the ability to form healthy relationships, achieve in school and succeed in life when given the opportunity. Having met with hundreds of these young people as part of our advocacy for change, we can personally attest to how incredibly strong, loving, and promising they each are.

As almost any adoptive parent will tell you, the immediate sense of love and belonging that exists between a child and adoptive parents is on par in every way with the relationship formed between a parent and their biological child. Furthermore, most adoptive parents would take issue with the movie’s message that an adopted child is not ‘one’s own’ since the only distinction between biological and adopted children is how they came to be a member of a family.

Therefore, we encourage you to continue to take steps to help us in conveying the positive and more accurate messages about US foster children and orphans worldwide outlined above. We look forward to your continued partnership in advancing this important issue.