Senate

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 [...]

Dr. Miguel Diaz, a professor of theology at St. John’s University in Collegeville, was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday to become ambassador to the Vatican.

Sen. Al Franken says his first bill in the Senate will be one to provide service dogs to veterans. A longtime USO entertainer for troops stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, Franken said training service dogs to work with physically and emotionally wounded veterans is a cost-saving measure.

Unlike Norm Coleman, the Republican incumbent in Minnesota’s last great recount did not appeal to the state Supreme Court. Gov. Elmer L. Andersen faced, as Coleman has, a ruling by a specially empaneled court that his Democratic rival (Karl Rolvaag) had won more votes. But Andersen decided not to continue the legal battle. His full statement of [...]

Here’s evidence that Minnesota’s post-election battle for U.S. Senate has permeated pop culture. Al Franken and Norm Coleman were cited this week by contestants in another competition that attracted millions of partisans: the race between movie actor Ashton Kutcher and news juggernaut CNN to be first to gain one million followers on Twitter, the social-media [...]

“We will never know who won,” Norm Coleman said Wednesday. That’s after seven Minnesota judges — three on Monday and four in January — concluded that Al Franken won Minnesota’s 2008 election for U.S. Senate. His was a “close victory,” the Democrat conceded on Monday. But Coleman — now down by 312 votes — isn’t buying it. “Our system isn’t geared for this kind of closeness.” Still, some precision is possible in politics, as Gawker.com suggested Wednesday with its two-word description of Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

We knew she was killing, as in funny. Now it turns out Sen. Amy Klobuchar is also knowing, as in clairvoyant. Her prediction two months ago about when she’d gain a home-state companion in the U.S. Senate was within 42 minutes of a court ruling that Franken won. UPDATED with new video clip from Rachel Maddow’s show. UPDATED again with video of Klobuchar on CNN.

Three election-law experts who have been closely tracking the Norm Coleman-Al Franken contest for U.S. Senate weigh in today with written reactions to the final order (pdf) from the three-judge panel that heard Coleman’s complaint. All admired the order for its unanimity and deft handling of Coleman’s equal-protection claims.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he might not sign an election certificate to seat Democrat Al Franken or Republican Norm Coleman in the U.S. Senate, even after the Minnesota Supreme Court is done with the disputed election.
“I also would want to look at what the courts did with the case in terms of leaving issues for [...]

U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar gets more plaudits in today’s New York Times for soldiering on as Minnesota’s sole senator. And she’s staying popular as she stays busy — though that isn’t quite good enough for one University of Minnesota political-science blog.