Bush v. Gore

Norm Coleman is crying crocodile tears over David Souter’s departure from the U.S. Supreme Court. Coleman may bring a senate-election case to the nation’s high court that relies on the court’s 2000 Bush v. Gore recount case — and Souter abhorred that decision more viscerally than any successor could.

“You really can’t start a transition until you’ve been elected president.” Those words of advice were offered to George W. Bush on TV Nov. 28, 2000, two weeks before the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore made Bush president, and seven weeks before Inauguration Day 2001. The advice came from Al Franken — [...]

Republican attorney Ben Ginsberg is helping usher Norm Coleman’s equal-protection claims to a high court (Minnesota’s), just as he did with another client, George W. Bush, and another high court (the United States’) eight years ago. Indeed, Coleman’s yet-to-be submitted brief is expected to cite Bush vs. Gore, as have his earlier briefs presented (unsuccessfully) to the state Supreme Court and the election-contest court. Maybe there’s a reason for that. In 2006, Ginsberg admitted to a law school audience:

Just like, really, with the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have some fundamental philosophical difficulties with the whole notion of Equal Protection.

You’ve heard of carbon offsets; newspapers seem to be doing something similar with offsetting editorials for and against Norm Coleman’s legal appeals to reclaim his old U.S. Senate seat. Over the weekend it was the Wall Street Journal egging Coleman on (sorry, bad metaphor), while the Bemidji Pioneer, a reliable outpost of Coleman support in [...]

Al Franken won the U.S. Senate contest by 225 votes. That was the determination that the five-member State Canvassing Board put their signatures to on Monday. Franken duly declared victory, pronouncing himself the “next senator from Minnesota.”

But as subsequent events have made abundantly clear that doesn’t mean the never-ending Senate contest is over. Indeed the legal contest filed by Norm Coleman’s campaign on Tuesday means it could still drag on for months. Here’s a quick primer on what will unfold in the coming weeks.