Supreme Court

“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 — [...]

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter announced today that he is switching from the Republican to the Democratic Party. That means Minnesota’s empty U.S. Senate seat could become the Democrats’ sixtieth — the number needed to break a Republican filibuster. Specter’s move increases the pressure enormously on Minnesota officials in a position to control the outcome of the disputed Senate election between Norm Coleman and Al Franken.

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.

Norm Coleman has kept his word and filed a petition to appeal his election-contest loss today to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The former U.S. senator’s petition asks the state’s high court to find fault with last week’s election contest court ruling that Democrat Al Franken won Coleman’s old Senate seat by 312 votes.

“I am honored and humbled by this close victory,” Al Franken announced to reporters from his townhouse stoop in downtown Minneapolis Monday night. Asked about Norm Coleman’s pledge to appeal the Monday court order that confirmed Franken’s recount win, the Democrat said, “I believe I will be certified” as U.S. Senator.

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 [...]

Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Christopher Dietzen donated twice to the campaign of Norm Coleman, Federal Election Commission records show. Two justices have already said they’d recuse themselves from an expected Coleman election-contest appeal, but word of any further recusals won’t come until the high court accepts an appeal and lays out ground rules in an initial order, a court spokesman tells MnIndy.

The time is nigh for Norm Coleman to say goodbye. That was the word over the weekend from Kiplinger.com, USA Today and an editor at National Review. Coleman’s bid to up-end Al Franken’s U.S. Senate recount win must stop at the Minnesota Supreme Court, wrote a Star Tribune columnist. He might push it further, as [...]

Despite mass arrests at this peepful protest against the Republican National Convention (submitted to the Pioneer Press’ Peeps Diorama Contest), all of the blue and brown peeps’ charges against the pink, yellow and light-green peeps have been dropped. After the jump, a speech-balloon version of the popular Senate election-contest trial scene, and selections from the ABA [...]

Senate Republicans advise Norm Coleman to make a federal case out of his election contest, if that’s what he wants to do. But one legal expert says he’d only be wasting his time.