Sonia Sotomayor

Saying it protects the free market, U.S. Sen. Al Franken sounded optimistic in a speech today about the chances for preserving net neutrality by law. “For the first time, it looks like we might actually do this,” Franken told the Future of Music Coalition in Washington, D.C.

By a vote of 68-31, with Sen. Al Franken sitting in as the body’s president, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Al Franken envisioned himself becoming President of the United States a decade ago in his book, “Why Not Me?” And today, for a time, he was president — of the U.S. Senate. It’s a temporary task that’s rotated among the senators, and Franken’s turn happened to come this afternoon at a historic moment, just as [...]

U.S. Sen. Al Franken, calling himself “a voice for the overwhelming majority of Americans who aren’t lawyers” on the Senate floor Wednesday night, continued his harsh critique of the U.S. Supreme Court, lambasting its recent record of overturning its own precedents:
Again, I think that this is judicial activism. In fact, I think it’s judicial activism [...]

Updated: U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar woke up today to a colleague’s voice on her clock radio, sounding off against the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor because of “the empathy standard.” On the floor of the Senate she told of her reaction: “I kind of put the pillow over my head.”

Anti-abortion group Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life called on Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken to reverse their Senate Judiciary Committee votes to approve Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on Tuesday. In a letter to the senators, MCCL said that a legal board that Sotomayor once sat on advocated abortion rights.

Al Franken spewed fire and Amy Klobuchar threw brimstone this morning at the Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Minnesotans joined 10 other Democrats and one Republican in approving the nominee, but not before Franken raked the current Court and Klobuchar decried bias against women on the bench.

Sen. Al Franken was famously contained during the long period of limbo between Election Day and his swearing-in, suppressing his wit by keeping mum in an effort to seem more senatorial. So when a video of Franken impersonating the late Sen. Paul Simon surfaced last week and then quickly disappeared, it suggested more humor-management. Not so, [...]

After a week of questioning, the Senate Juciary Committee — including Minnesota Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar — is scheduled to vote today on the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court. (The GOP, according to some reports, plans to delay the vote for one week, however.)
Update: Due to a [...]

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, [...]