U.S. Supreme Court

Minnesota’s two Democratic senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, joined the Judiciary committee this year (in Franken’s case, this month), and their votes on Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court — scheduled for tomorrow — will be historic: Never before in its 193-year history has the committee had even a single Democrat from Minnesota, [...]

It’s standard political rhetoric to claim you speak for many. During hearings this week, both the Senate Judiciary Committee’s longest-serving member (Orrin Hatch of Utah) and its newest (Al Franken of Minnesota) boasted that their questions for Judge Sonia Sotomayor represented the concerns of “millions” of their constituents. Indeed, the U.S. Census counts 2.7 million [...]

During this week’s Judiciary Committee hearings, no senator asked Judge Sonia Sotomayor about her health. It would have been a legitimate area of inquiry, an expert told the Minnesota Independent, because Sotomayor’s Type I diabetes could shorten her life expectancy, and thus her time on the bench. A legal historian tells the Los Angeles Times [...]

NBC just dug a timely video out of its vaults: Al Franken playing a U.S. senator on the Senate’s Judiciary Committee, questioning a U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Now viewers can compare and contrast his 1991 and 2009 performances.

Minnesota’s U.S. senators had a second crack at questioning Judge Sonia Sotomayor this morning. As the lowest-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary committee, Al Franken had planned on having the last word, but Republicans asked for (and were granted) a third round. “I thought I was going to be the only thing between you and [...]

Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was questioned on Wednesday about marriage case law in Minnesota. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pressed Sotomayor about same-sex marriage precedent — without actually mentioning gays or marriage — by using Baker v. Nelson, a 1971 ruling by the Minnesota Supreme outlawing same-sex marriage in Minnesota.

Just as Sen. Al Franken began his opening statements during the Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, a woman shouted “wrong about abortion!” and ran out of the hearing.
That woman was Norma McCorvey of Texas, otherwise known as “Jane Roe,” the central figure of the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade.

UPDATED: Sen. Al Franken is meeting with Judge Sonia Sotomayor at this hour to learn her views in advance of next week’s hearings on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. He has said he wants to ask her about campaign finance reform. Franken, who says he’ll act as the “people’s proxy“ at the hearings, is one of [...]

In a story on the Senate Judiciary Committee taking up Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court next week, the New York Times makes mention of something noted here last week: committee member Al Franken’s 1991 TV portrayal of a U.S. senator on the same committee, questioning a Supreme Court nominee.

Sen.-elect Al Franken already knows what he’ll ask Judge Sonia Sotomayor about during the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court that begin July 13: campaign finance.