Al Franken

U.S. Sen. Al Franken introduced legislation Thursday that would encourage states to examine untested rape kits for DNA evidence. The bill would also provide for more health workers trained to administer rape-kit exams, particularly for Native American women.

Actor Jon Voight dances to Minnesota Republicans’ tune over the next two days, appearing tonight with Gov. Tim Pawlenty at the first local fundraising event for his new Freedom First PAC in Minneapolis and on Thursday with U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in Washington, D.C., answering her call to storm the U.S. Capitol to stop health [...]

In making the case for his federal same-day voter registration bill, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison points to how much voter fraud was alleged in the “highly scrutinized” Norm Coleman-Al Franken U.S. Senate contest due to Minnesotans’ ability to register to vote on Election Day: none.

Politics in Minnesota has posted a lovely new infographic chart showing DFL candidates for governor and the endorsements they’ve earned.

Ballot referendum measures in Minneapolis and St. Paul will be decided by voters next week, but the cities’ daily newspaper editorial boards say today how those votes should go. The Star Tribune says to vote yes on eliminating the city’s tax board, and the Pioneer Press says to vote no on instant-runoff voting. So remember: [...]

Gov. Pawlenty continued his attacks on Barack Obama today, saying the president is “spending the country into bankruptcy,” is “projecting potential weakness” to America’s enemies, and has “governed in an extremely liberal way.”

U.S. Sen. Al Franken has it in for Brian Williams. That’s one conclusion to be drawn from Franken’s backing of a bill that would end tax breaks for pharmaceutical ads of the sort that pepper TV network news shows. Meanwhile, Franken is having unintended side effects of his own. National Geographic magazine is challenging other [...]

The U.S. Senate passed the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act on Thursday with the controversial Matthew Shepard Act attached. The act would add sexual orientation and gender identity to federal hate crimes laws. The bill now heads to the desk of President Obama, who at last week’s Human Rights Campaign dinner promised LGBT advocates he’d [...]

Huffington Post’s Sam Stein is reporting that an amendment to the defense appropriations bill authored by Sen. Al Franken and approved in the Senate two weeks ago may be stripped from the final bill. Thirty Senate Republicans — now commemorated in the satirical web site Republicans for Rape — opposed the measure, which would prohibit [...]

Pity the U.S. Senate committee witness who tries to slip a fishy statistic past Al Franken. The fearsome Harvard math major punished conservative economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth for claiming that Democrats’ reforms would jack up bankruptcies for medical reasons.