Funny Fly-Over State

Many people on the coasts tend to think of my native state of Minnesota as just another fly-over state. Dull farmers stuck, not only in the middle of nowhere, but in the middle of cold nowhere.

Having lived in the East for more than 20 years, I've heard that message quite often. Of course, I know about its vibrant arts scene, high-quality educational institutions, natural beauty and Minnesota Nice people. My career has led me elsewhere, but my heart and soul have never left South Minneapolis.

Every time that supposedly-dull state makes an odd political move (and they have frequently done so), outsiders are caught off guard. Now, Al Franken is about to complete his transition from silly late-night comedy, to the often sillier, but rarely deliberately humorous, U.S. Senate. On Independence Day, David Carr put that event in historical perspective in The New York Times. I will add some further notes:

During the 1930s, Minnesota voters ceded near-complete control of state government to the socialist Farmer-Labor Party, which I described here.

They reversed that trend when they elected a 31-year-old Republican, Harold Stassen, as governor in 1938. Stassen was a major candidate for his party's presidential nomination in 1948. But, having lost that bid, he went on to declare presidential candidacies so often, that he became a national laughing-stock.

After the Democratic and Farmer-Labor parties merged in 1944, Hubert Humphrey emerged as the leading figure in the combined DFL. By the time of his death in 1978, Humphrey had come to be seen by many as a major statesman (although post-mortem revelations of just how beholden he was to international agribusiness interests somewhat tainted his reputation).

But, especially early on in his Senate career, Humphrey was widely perceived as somewhat of a buffoon. He needed to be told that his speeches did not need to be eternal to be immortal. Also, he was derided as someone who had more solutions than there were problems.

After a few years, Humphrey was joined in the Senate by a DFL colleague, Eugene McCarthy, a rather odd politician. He had briefly worked as a college professor, and was obviously more interested in big ideas, than in the tedium that constitutes so much of political work. McCarthy was so unable to concentrate on the things that bored him, that his opponent when he ran for reelection in 1964 unsuccessfully attempted to skewer him with the slogan "Minnesota needs a full-time senator!"

After McCarthy lost the Democratic president nomination to Humphrey in August of 1968, he abandoned the fall campaign, to instead briefly become a sports journalist, covering the World Series for Life magazine.

Carr describes some of the more eccentric characters in subsequent Minnesota politics. Although he omits the Republican gubernatorial candidate who had to drop out of the race in October, after he was accused of acting improperly toward underage girls among his daughter's friends.

In light of all that history, it's strange that some people are still surprised by an event such as Franken's election. It's a fun state! Some time when you're flying over, why don't you stop in for a while?

Senator Franken?

The Minnesota Supreme Court has reaffirmed the recount that showed Democrat Al Franken the winner of that state's U.S. Senate election last year, against Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

Minnesota's Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, has made strong statements (with perhaps some wiggle room) in recent days, that he would sign a certificate of election for Franken, if the Court so decided. I will be surprised if that doesn't happen in short order.

UPDATE: Coleman has conceded the election to Franken.

Pawlenty of time until 2012

Governor Tim Pawlenty, Republican of Minnesota, has announced that he will not run for a third term in that office, next year. That changes the dynamics in the gubernatorial election, but it might affect two other elections, as well.

Pawlenty has been positioning himself to seek his party's presidential nomination in 2012. Leaving office at the beginning of 2011 will free up his time for presidential campaigning. Also, it might help him, if he avoids day-to-day involvement with difficult state budget issues. Economic growth is expected to have resumed by 2011, but economists generally expect a lukewarm recovery. Anything a governor does, under those circumstances, is subject to criticism from all sides.

Additionally, state campaign finance laws would apparently restrict his ability to raise funds for a presidential run, if he were also a gubernatorial candidate.

Several Democratic candidates (in the party that, in Minnesota, is called Democratic-Farmer-Labor) have emerged to try to succeed Pawlenty. The best-known name is that of former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton.

The other question is: who will enter the now-cleared Republican field? One name frequently mentioned (and this is how a third election might be affected) is that of another former U.S. senator, Norm Coleman. Coleman ran for governor in 1998, only to be beaten in a three-way race (which is not the same as two out of three falls) by Jesse Ventura.

Coleman's appeal of a state court's decision in favor of Al Franken, Coleman's opponent in the 2008 race for U.S. senator from Minnesota, is being considered this week by that state's supreme court. If Coleman decides to run for governor, perhaps that will lead him to concede the Senate election, and allow Pawlenty to avoid what might otherwise be an uncomfortable decision on whether to sign a certificate of election for Franken.

However, there is also speculation in the other direction, i.e., that, not having to face Minnesota voters next year, Pawlenty will feel more free to deny Franken the certificate, and allow Coleman to appeal to federal court.

Donkey Diversity

This Politico report gives further evidence of a phenomenon that I've described in this and other posts. In order to increase their numbers in the Senate, the Democrats have had to extend themselves beyond their hard-core base.

New Democratic senators from such states as Alaska and Virginia cannot be expected to support the entire agenda of veteran Democrats from states such as California and Massachusetts.

From the other end of the Capitol comes a familiar characterization of the Senate. Representative John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, says “if you have 60 cats, you got to get them all together in the same place to get something done ... herding senators and herding cats have a lot in common.”

That's somewhat more true on the Senate side than it is in the House. But even in the House, things have changed since legendary Speaker Sam Rayburn, Democrat of Texas, supposedly would tell junior congressmen, "if you want to get along, go along." House members may still be easier to herd than senators, but members of the lower house have increasingly developed an independent streak in recent decades.

It's a difficult question. Members of both houses of Congress are answerable to their constituents. But the party leaders in each house need to influence their membership, in order to get anything done. An ability to carefully apply carrots and sticks is a key part of a congressional leader's job description.

That Politico report reminds me of a story that my favorite political science professor liked to tell. When John Kennedy was elected president in 1960, his Democratic Party had large majorities in both houses of Congress, 263-174 in the House and 64-36 in the Senate. But Kennedy was stymied in trying to get legislation through the Congress, largely because those party numbers masked the clout of the Conservative Coalition.

In the 1962 midterm congressional campaign, Kennedy advocated the election of more congressional Democrats, in order to get his legislative program adopted. With those large Democratic majorities already in place, Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Republican leader, supposedly responded by asking "how many Democrats does he need?"

Well, the current Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, is hinting at a message similar to Kennedy's, for the 2010 elections. Given the realities of Senate rules, and the lack of party discipline in that legislative body, Reid might need more than the 60 he'll have when/if Al Franken is seated as junior senator from Minnesota.

All The Minnesota News That's Fit To Print

Adam Nagourney of The New York Times has published two articles about the politics of my native state of Minnesota. They are somewhat unrelated, but a common thread is the potential presidential candidacy of that state's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty.

One of those articles addresses the current status of the never-ending U.S. Senate election between Norm Coleman and Al Franken, now that a state court has confirmed the result of the recount in favor of Franken. Coleman will appeal to the state supreme court, but the issue facing Pawlenty is whether, at some point, perhaps after the Minnesota supreme court decides the matter, he will need to issue a certificate of election, even if further appeals are pursued.

Two interesting excerpts from that article:

First, Nagourney describes Coleman, a Brooklyn native, as an "expatriate" for having moved to Minnesota. That term is usually applied to one who leaves one's native country, rather than one who merely moves from one U.S. state to another. Sorry, Adam, shocking at this might be to a New Yorker, that midwestern state of ice fishing, dairy cattle, and people who talk like the characters in Fargo, is in the same country as the boroughs of New York City.

Second, he ties this race in to the 2000 presidential election deadlock between George W. Bush and Al Gore. That's appropriate, up to a point. But this statement is puzzling:

This is not merely another example of the kind of whisker-close political contest that has become a regular part of the American political landscape since the 2000 presidential race.

There were close elections in this country before 2000. (As I've repeatedly mentioned, the ones that are most relevant to the Franken-Coleman race are the Minnesota gubernatorial election of 1962, and the New Hampshire U.S. Senate contest in 1974.) And there have been close elections since 2000.

He seems to imply, contrary to that history, that the 2000 deadlock caused a new trend of close elections. Presumably part of Karl Rove's evil plan to destroy America.

In the next post, I'll discuss how helpful it is for a Republican presidential hopeful to get a positive mention in a newspaper that many of his fellow party members despise.

Revenge

As I discussed in this post, the dispute about Minnesota's U.S. Senate election could either be settled relatively soon, or extend for a very long period of time.

Now, Politico describes statements from both parties, about plans to pursue ethics investigations against whichever candidate eventually prevails.

Certainly, no politician should be above the law, and legitimate charges of ethics violations should be thoroughly investigated. But if the electorate perceives both parties to be preparing to exact revenge if they lose, that will probably exacerbate the "pox on both your houses" attitude that many voters hold toward the parties.

I think we need more of the spirit expressed in Al Gore's remarkable concession speech in 2000, when he said:

This has been an extraordinary election. But in one of God's unforeseen paths, this belatedly broken impasse can point us all to a new common ground, for its very closeness can serve to remind us that we are one people with a shared history and a shared destiny.

Years?!

National Republican leaders are still taking a hard line on the question of pursuing appeals of the U.S. Senate recount in Minnesota that showed Democrat Al Franken to be the winner over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

Politico reports that Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Republican campaign chief, is OK with a federal appeal process that could go on for years, during which Minnesota will continue to be limited to one senator.

If the state court decision goes against Coleman, and he is unsuccessful in appealing that to the state supreme court, I think Coleman should then concede the election to Franken. I say that, not because I want another Democratic senator, but because I want to head off a backlash against Republicans in Minnesota, and perhaps elsewhere.

If the state's Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty is perceived to be putting partisan considerations ahead of the state's interests, that could endanger both his position as one of the few remaining Republican officeholders in Minnesota, and his apparent hopes for national office.

Minnesota has tended to be sensitive about its reputation for above-board politics. I've been away from there for a couple of decades, but I'm guessing that attitude hasn't changed much.

Democrat Wendell Anderson was a very popular governor of Minnesota, until he engineered his own appointment to a U.S. Senate vacancy in 1976. When that Senate seat came up for election in 1978, Anderson lost in a huge landslide. His downfall also contributed to his party's loss of the governorship and the other U.S. Senate seat (in a special election necessitated by Hubert Humphrey's death) that same day.

The Republicans are currently much weaker in Minnesota than the Democrats (called the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party in that state) were in the run-up to the 1978 elections. But they could become even weaker, if the voters now render the same verdict of misbehavior against the Republicans, as they did to the DFL in 1978.

It's possible that the Republicans won't follow through on their tough talk. If they do plan to concede at some point, they would not want to signal that willingness in advance.

Dubious Achievement

Minnesota has passed a milestone of sorts. The disputed Senate election between Norm Coleman and Al Franken will now become the longest such deadlock in the state's history.

The 1962 gubernatorial election, to which I alluded here, was held on November 6, 1962. The winner of the recount, Karl Rolvaag, took office on March 25, 1963, after an interval of 139 days.

As of today, 139 days have passed since election day 2008, and there is no end in sight to litigation arising out of the recount.

National Republican leaders have been quoted in recent days as saying that Coleman should pursue every possible appeal. Had I still been a Minnesota resident, I would have voted for Coleman. But is it worth pursuing a total war strategy over this?

Live, from St. Paul, it's Monday afternoon!

The trial of a lawsuit brought by Republican former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, challenging a recount that showed that his Democratic-Farmer-Labor opponent, Al Franken, had won their U.S. Senate race, begins today, in St. Paul.

Minnesota Public Radio describes the trial in this report.

Meanwhile, the Senate has been considering seating Franken on a provisional basis, pending the outcome of the litigation.

Democrats cite the precedent of Senator Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, who was provisionally seated, pending a challenge to her 1996 victory. That race was not as close as the Coleman-Franken contest, and it revolved more around fraud allegations. No precedent is ever exactly on point, but I reluctantly concede that this one could arguably justify seating Franken.

First Day of School

The 111th Congress convened yesterday.

On the Senate side, the biggest issues involve the vacant Senate seats from Illinois and Minnesota.

The Senate has rejected Roland Burris's certificate of appointment because it was not signed by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White. White refuses to sign, because he opposes having Gov. Rod Blagojevich make any appointment to the Senate seat that the governor is accused of having tried to sell.

I'm not a lawyer, and have not researched the law on this topic. But it seems to me that the signature requirement is not intended to allow a secretary of state to veto a governor's choice. Burris has commenced legal action to overcome the obstacles to his being seated in the Senate and, on that particular point, seems to be on solid legal ground.

However, he still faces the Constitution's elections, returns and qualifications clause that I discussed here in the context of the Minnesota case. As noted in that post, the courts have refused to second-guess the houses of Congress when they make decisions under that clause. Perhaps, if the Senate so desired, it could block Burris's appointment, even without citing a legal technicality such as the signature requirement.

This article in Politico describes how Senate Democrats' political will might be weakening on that question.

Regarding the disputed Minnesota election between Norm Coleman and Al Franken, the Senate is, for the time being at least, laying back, pending Coleman's court challenge to the recount that found Franken to be the winner. If push comes to shove, I suppose that the Senate's constitutional authority could trump that of the judicial branch, and the Senate might act to seat Franken at some point. However, Franken still does not have a certificate of election from Minnesota, so the Senate's Democratic majority will apparently need to wait at least a little while before taking any such action.

My gut feeling is that Franken will eventually emerge as the winner, but there is no certainty as to whether that will happen and, if so, how long it will take.

There were no such personnel issues on the House side. The biggest story over there was the adoption of the House's rules for the 111th Congress. One change is that they abolished the six-year term limit on committee chairmen that was imposed when the Republicans took control of the House in 1995. I wrote about that issue in this post regarding the congressional seniority system.

... until it's over

The Minnesota State Canvassing Board is expected later today to call Al Franken the winner of the U.S. Senate race in that state. The Board has done as much recounting as it considers appropriate, and has found Franken to be ahead by 225 votes.

But, as is so often the case, the wisdom of that great American philosopher Yogi Berra fits this situation: "it ain't over until it's over".

Franken's opponent, Republican Norm Coleman, who has held the seat for the past six years (and is now, I suppose, correctly described as a "former senator") has two possible avenues to challenge the decision: 1) the courts; and 2) the U.S. Senate.

Coleman has already challenged certain recount procedures in Minnesota courts. If the Board acts as they are expected to do today, that will mark the beginning of a seven-day period during which the result can be challenged. It seems certain that Coleman will make such a challenge.

The Senate could also take up the case, pursuant to its constitutional authority, granted by Article 1, clause 5 of the Constitution, which provides in part that "each House [of Congress] shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members".

It seems unlikely that the Senate, with its large Democratic majority, will come to Coleman's rescue. On the other hand, I suspect that Senate Democrats are wary of creating the impression that they are implementing a power play to finalize a Democratic victory. That could create a backlash in favor of Republicans in Minnesota, and perhaps more widely.

However, there is a precedent in the House of Representatives that suggests that a majority party incurs no lasting damage from such a decision. The dispute to which I refer involved a 1984 House race in Indiana. For more details, see this decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, when that court declined to intervene in the controversy. (One interesting sidelight: the court's opinion was written by Antonin Scalia, just before he moved to the Supreme Court.)

I happened to be visiting Washington when the House voted along party lines to seat the Democratic candidate Frank McCloskey, and I listened to much of that debate from the House Gallery. Despite much harsh rhetoric from Republicans, who tried in vain to force a special election, the action by the Democratic majority seemed to have no lasting effect. McCloskey continued to be reelected, until he was caught up in the Republican landslide of 1994.

As another demonstration of one of my favorite political maxims, "a week is a long time in politics", it's possible that any action that the Democratic Senate majority might take in favor of Al Franken might be largely forgotten by the time of the next election.

No Can Do

I speculated in this post about whether Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty would appoint a senator as a temporary replacement, now that it's clear that the dispute over the Coleman-Franken Senate race will not be resolved before the new Senate convenes next week. Yesterday, Pawlenty told WCCO Radio in Minneapolis that the legal opinion he has received indicates that he cannot make such an appointment.

The Senate would need to declare the seat permanently vacant, as they did in this 1974 New Hampshire case that appears to be the most relevant precedent for the current Minnesota situation, before there could be a gubernatorial appointment. In the meantime, the seat apparently exists in a strange sort of limbo, neither filled nor vacant.

Counting, counting, counting ...

Remember the Al Franken decade? It seems that it's taking that long to count the votes in his ever-so-close election against Norm Coleman for a U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota.

Here is an update from the Pioneer Press, a St. Paul newspaper. Minnesota authorities have apparently conceded that they won't be able to finish their recount by the time the new Senate convenes next month.

According to this Minnesota Public Radio report, Governor Tim Pawlenty could appoint a senator, if the result remains undecided after Coleman's current term ends. Pawlenty is a Republican, and it seems likely that he would appoint his fellow Republican Coleman.

I'm not sure of all the legalities involved but, in this New Hampshire case to which the Minnesota election has been compared, the Senate seat remained vacant for some months. The governor did not make an interim appointment until the candidates had agreed to hold a new election. Does state law govern that, and is there a statutory difference that would allow a Minnesota governor to go further than that New Hampshire governor did, and make an interim appointment at the beginning of the congressional session? Any comments that could shed light on that would be appreciated.

Senate Elections: North and More North

The official tally has been completed in the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota, and the tally is apparently all-but-final in Alaska.

Mayor Mark Begich, Democrat of Anchorage, Alaska, has defeated Republican incumbent Senator Ted Stevens. I was incorrect in this post, when I wrote that the slim lead Stevens appeared to have in the immediately aftermath of the election would not be overturned. However, it is still remarkable that Begich's victory margin is only 0.29 of a percentage point, when pre-election polls had indicated that he might win by 10 points or more.

According to this New York Times report, Stevens could ask for a recount but, apparently, he would have to pay for it. He might not want to go to too much bother because, even if the recount were successful for him, his Senate colleagues would probably overturn his election via an expulsion vote.

The current official figures from Minnesota show an even closer margin. Out of 2,885,555 votes cast, Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman leads his Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party challenger Al Franken by 215 votes. The percentage difference is 0.00745%.

There's an old saying that life imitates art. I would go that one further by saying that life imitates Monty Python's Flying Circus. One episode of that comedy series from British television featured the Olympic Men's Hide-and-Seek final. Don Roberts (Graham Chapman) goes first, and finds Francisco Huron (Terry Jones) in 11 years, 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 27 seconds. Then, when it's Huron's turn, he finds Roberts in 11 years, 2 months, 26 days, 9 hours, 3 minutes, 27 seconds. It's a tie, and the replay is scheduled to begin the following day.

Unlike the hide-and-seek final, the Coleman-Franken race is not quite a tie, but it's close. Minnesota election law requires an automatic recount in any election decided by less than half of one percentage point. Therefore, the margin in the current figures is 67 times closer than it needs to be to trigger the recount. Apparently there is no similar provision in Alaska law that Stevens could count on to bolster any claim he might make for a recount.

The Minnesota recount begins today.

There is precedent for a result similar to the hide-and-seek final. There was a do-over of a 1974 Senate election in New Hampshire. There has been some speculation about whether the Minnesota case is headed in a similar direction.

Minnesota Recount

Here is a New York Times report on the impending recount in the Minnesota Senate race between Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman, and his Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party challenger, comedian Al Franken.

Christina Capecchi writes the following:

Stakes are high because with three Senate races yet to be decided,
Democrats still have a chance of winning the 60 seats needed to break Republican filibusters in Washington.

I'll reiterate something I've written previously, that the notion of 60 members of the Democratic Senate caucus being a magic number is overblown.

It's not comparable to the question of whether one party gets 51 Senate seats (0r 50 along with the tie-breaking vote of the vice president), and is therefore the majority party. That is generally a one-time thing at the beginning of a Congress (two rare exceptions that occurred in 2001 don't invalidate my analysis). On the other hand, the breaking of a filibuster via a cloture vote (which requires 60 votes) is on a case-by-case basis throughout the two-year term of a Congress.

On some votes, the Democratic leadership is likely to lose the support of some members of its own caucus. They may also pick up some Republican votes on some issues.

The enlarged Democratic majority (or "Democrat majority", as the lame-duck president once said, in a remark that was almost controversial enough to start nucular war) is not irrelevant. But the notion that, if they have 59 votes they'll be stymied but, if they have 60, they'll be able to do anything they want, is an oversimplification.

That idea brings structure and drama to journalists' accounts of the still-undecided Senate races in Georgia, Alaska and Minnesota, but I don't think it is totally accurate in describing the situation.

Undecided Senate Elections

It's still not clear who won U.S. Senate elections in three states.

I wrote about the Georgia situation here.

Outcomes are also unsettled in Alaska and Minnesota.

In Alaska, they're still counting absentee ballots, and both sides have challenged some ballots. A final count is due later this month, but that could be challenged in court. Incumbent Senator Ted Stevens has a small, but not razor-thin, edge over his Democratic challenger Mark Begich. But if Stevens wins this vote, he still faces challenges, as I described in this post.

The Minnesota Senate race between Norm Coleman and Al Franken is headed for a recount. Coleman's 221-vote lead in unofficial returns is close enough to trigger an automatic recount, under that state's election laws. If the state's official count, due on November 18, is in line with those unofficial numbers, the recount will take place. Supposedly there is a December deadline on the recount, but court challenges could upset that timetable.

The most famous recount in Minnesota history occurred in the 1962 gubernatorial race between Republican incumbent Governor Elmer L. Andersen (Minnesota is so Scandinavian that, in discussing past governors, one must distinguish between multiple Elmer Andersons) and Democratic-Farmer-Labor Lieutenant Governor Karl Rolvaag.

Andersen had a tiny lead in the initial count. The recount came out in Rolvaag's favor, but he was not able to take office until late March 1963.

While both sides in the Coleman-Franken contest will probably put up as many challenges as they need to, I'm sure no one wants the Senate recount to drag on that long.

The Democrats' goal of 60 Senate seats is not quite out of reach. However, they need to do four things: 1) win the Georgia runoff, 2) prevail in the Minnesota recount, 3) one way or the other, take over Ted Stevens's seat in Alaska, and 4) keep Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman in the Democratic caucus. None of those four things is impossible, but stringing them all together seems somewhat improbable.

Al Franken Decade? Or At Least 6 Years?

The Minnesota Senate race is about as close as can be. Real Clear Politics reports that the polls, on average, show a virtual dead heat between Republican incumbent Senator Norm Coleman, and the Democratic-Farmer-Labor candidate, former television comedian Al Franken.

But recent polls have indicated anything between a nine-point Coleman lead, and a six-point advantage for Franken. Here is a blog post on Minnesota Public Radio's website, discussing different polling methodologies, and their affect on the results.

North Star State residents are having a difficult time deciding whether, doggone it, they like Franken.

Celebrity Candidates

In the days since I wrote this about my favorite politician, Jesse Ventura, there has been increasing speculation that Ventura will run for the U.S. Senate in Minnesota this year.

The primary will be held in September, but it's already clear that the major party nominations will go to the candidates who have received the non-binding endorsements of their state conventions.

The Republican incumbent is Norm Coleman, who finished second to Ventura in the 1998 race for governor. Coleman received much national attention in 2002, when he won his first Senate term by defeating former Vice President Walter Mondale. When the incumbent Democrat running for reelection, Paul Wellstone, was killed in an October 25, 2002, plane crash, the party chose Mondale as its substitute candidate.

The Democratic candidate is comedian Al Franken, who grew up in Minnesota, and has now returned to the state to make the Senate race.