david lillehaug

Getting named in a developer’s lawsuit on Thursday, five days before Election Day, was bad enough. But Friday wasn’t much better for Minneapolis Council Member Diane Hofstede, whose office got more than 50 calls after the city’s public works department towed cars to clear University Avenue for cleaning without having posted required warning signs. Among [...]

When Gov. Tim Pawlenty unilaterally settled the state’s $2.7 billion budget the consensus was that his authority to do so would be challenged in court. But two months later no lawsuits have been filed.

Lawyers for Al Franken are trying to turn Norm Coleman’s recent media blitz into a justice blitz, using comments from the Republican campaign in news reports to persuade the the Minnesota Supreme Court to speed up Coleman’s appeal.

Testimony from a witness for Norm Coleman was stricken from the court record today when the three judges in Minnesota’s election contest trial agreed with Al Franken’s side that Coleman lawyers should not have shared notes with her during a break. As seen and reported on The UpTake, it was a dramatic blow for Coleman’s [...]

And on the fourth day they rested? Minnesota’s top two elected officials spent the last three days talking economic stimulus on the airwaves and cable lines of two supposed bastions of liberal media, MSNBC and National Public Radio. Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Gov. Tim Pawlenty appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” on successive nights, [...]

At first Valentine’s Day seemed to have come early as Week 3 began in Minnesota’s election contest trial between Al Franken and Norm Coleman. The former senator’s lawyers started the day by calling two husband-and-wife pairs of absentee voters to the witness stand whose ballots had been rejected for improper witnessing. Then Franken attorney David Lillehaug rose to make a major objection: Coleman’s side has not answered the Franken side’s questions about the evidence they’re going to present, as the court has ordered them to do.

Al Franken’s campaign has written to Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie asking that he be issued a certificate declaring him the winner of the U.S. Senate contest. Last week the state Canvassing Board certified results showing that Franken won the election by 225 votes, but former Sen. Norm Coleman has contested the results in state court.

The Minnesota Independent liveblogged and tweeted (at MnIndyLIVE) the Nov. 26 State Canvassing Board meeting, at which Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie led the five-person board in considering the Al Franken for Senate campaign’s request that they find a way to count votes from all improperly rejected absentee ballots.

Al Franken’s lawyers take a lashing from Politics in Minnesota (PIM) — mostly on style points — for their impolitic memorandum in response to an opinion from the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office that the State Canvassing Board needn’t take up the issue of improperly rejected absentee ballots:
And smart lawyers never impugn the integrity of the [...]

The fight over the closest Senate contest in Minnesota history turned to the Ramsey County Courthouse this morning. In a hearing before Judge Dale Lindman, Al Franken’s campaign argued that Ramsey County election officials should be required to turn over information about rejected absentee ballots. Attorney David Lillehaug made the case that the names of all voters who had their ballots invalidated, along with the reason for that decision, should be provided. “That information is critical to the plaintiff,” he stated