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“Senator” Al Franken sworn in
“Senator” is now Al Franken’s official title, after being sworn in on the Senate floor at 12:15pm on Tuesday. The Senate galleries were packed with Franken’s family, supporters, and visitors who poured in to view the swearing-in. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., began the proceedings with praise for her new colleague, saying the former Saturday Night Live writer and actor would “take his job very seriously.”
After being delayed for months by legal battles in a tight race in Minnesota, Franken, whose dad was a printing salesman and mom was a homemaker, was finally able to bring a black, leather, soft cover bible to the senate floor to be sworn-in upon. The surrounding gallery and senators rose in a standing ovation after Vice President Joe Biden read the oath of office and Franken swore, “I do.”
Franken has been placed on the Judicial Committee, which will debate Sonia Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination starting July 13, and the Health, Education, and Pensions Committee, which is currently marking up key health care reform proposals.
The Democrats now have a 60-seat super-majority in the Senate, which can nix any Republican filibuster attempts, if ailing Democratic Sens. Kennedy and Byrd can return to the Senate to vote.
back to top49 Comments to ““Senator” Al Franken sworn in”
Congratulations, Senator Franken. If you “take your job very seriously”, please try to read every bill before you vote on it. That would make you more informed than the other 99 senators.
The filibuster-proof majority holds ONLY if Kennedy and Byrd show up to vote, AND Reid keeps Specter and Lieberman in line. Fifty-eight out of ninety-eight doesn’t cut it.
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And I would get rid of the scare quotes ( ” oooh “). Honor the process and move on.
Scott has it right too. The majority is far from guaranteed given the situation in the Senate, and given the varieties of Democrats present. The real danger is to have the Republican read “majority” as “we can do nothing” and so lapse into a policy of out and out opposition. That would not serve them or the country well. There is still plenty of room for engagement.
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Senator Norm Coleman won by 725 votes. After a recount, he won by 215. Then the Democrats demanded that disqualified votes be qualified, but only in the counties they preferred. Decent people with standards of justice evaporated. The Democrat operatives and their willing accomplices found more than enough absentee ballots (most of them previously rejected for good reasons) to pervert and reverse the will of the people. The only actual standard that mattered to our intensely partisan Democrat Secretary of State and other Democrat operatives in charge was that no Democrat can be allowed to lose a close election.
My vote was and is effectively meaningless.
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I tell you what. If guys like this qualify for the Senate, then Palin is definitely qualified for the Presidency.
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Al Franken built his career on hating conservatives, but this hatred is not unique to him. Howard Dean, the former Vermont Governor and chairman of the Democratic National Committee, once said, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for” (January 30, 2005). He also described the difference between Republicans and Democrats this way: “In contradistinction to Republicans, we [Democrats] don’t want children to go to bed hungry at night.” The #2 Democrat in the Senate, Richard Durbin, once compared U.S. soldiers to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others—that had no concern for human beings.” The loathing of President Bush from the left was not only reprehensible, it was effective! Our current President spent 20 years in a church that seethed hatred for America.
Why should decent Republicans subject themselves to such hatred from ELECTED political officials when our votes are worthless in the end? The voting process in Minnesota is clearly corrupt. The people and their consent are irrelevant here.
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The new face of the Democrat party is a CLOWN.
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The real danger is to have the Republican read “majority” as “we can do nothing” and so lapse into a policy of out and out opposition.
What do you think they have been doing for the last 6 months? Besides writing a budget and a healthcare plan without numbers?
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Joel Mark,
I understand your frustration. Ohio Republicans held every state office, both houses of the legislature, both U.S. senators and a congressional majority in 2004. Democrats screamed like stuck pigs after the 2004 presidential election, claiming it was rigged for Bush (remember the Diebold voting machines?).
Since then, the Democrats have reclaimed all the state offices except one, the Ohio House, one U.S. senator and a congressional majority.
What goes around comes around, and now it’s the Republicans turn for frustration. Hang in there, Joel Mark, the next election is not that far away.
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Many Democrats did not like Franken and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune actually endorsed the Republican; Coleman. Some Democrat feminists were especially outraged that Franken could get in considering the way he has verbally demeaned women over the years. But we have too many angry Ronulins (or Ron Paulites) up here and they absolutely refuse to vote for a Republican who is not 100% totally perfect in their eyes. They care about their own ideological temper and feelings and nothing about actual results. So a third party guy with no chance of winning took a ton of votes that would have gone to Coleman. But that’s how politics works today.
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Joel, #3. If you think that is bad, wait till ACORN starts counting votes.
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I know a few who voted on write-ins that probably didn’t have their votes counted. The whole thing was very strange. Very strange.
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“I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It, People Like Me!”
First a wrestler, then a comedian. What is up with the people of Minnesota? Apparently they never recovered from Mondale’s thrashing by Reagan.
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WOOHOO!
Congratulations to Senator Franken!
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C-Span Video of Senator Al Franken (D-MI) being sworn in by Vice President Joseph Biden!
Way to go Al!! We’re proud of you. Hopefully Norm Coleman will pay back the nearly $100,000 in legal fees he was found to owe you!
http://www.dailykostv.com/w/001905/
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Post 3. Sob. Boo-Hoo. It really never is a good when a Supreme Court has to decide an election. As we learned in 2000. But it is the process we have.
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Why are folks around here so upset by Franken? He’s told a lot of jokes and made a lot of people laugh at the expense of conservatives. But let’s not forget that humor sometimes conveys truth. And let’s not be above laughing at ourselves. All this sulking is making us look like a bunch of crotchety dimwits, beaten at our own game.
Joel Mark is trying to convince you all that our votes don’t count. Is that the lesson we’re to draw from such a close election? Are we being tempted to follow the lead of that quitter Sarah Palin? How have we become such a bunch of belly-aching sissies?
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The votes were counted–several times in fact. But not all of them. And the fact is, it was like no election I have ever seen or heard about. So I will still say: very strange.
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What’s spooky scary for the GOP is that Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty is supposedly a frontrunner for 2012. Yet he doesn’t even have enough pull in his state to defeat Al Franken?!? With Pawlenty’s clout, I’m betting Arsenio will resurrect his career and easily take out Michelle Bachman in 2010.
Let’s handicap the supposed front-runners for the 2012 GOP field.
Tim Pawlenty: An ineffective lightweight Governor with absolutely zero pull over his state’s electorate.
“The Klondike Quitter” (Sarah Palin). When the going gets tough, the hockey mom’s go fishing.
And Governor soul-mate himself, Marky Mark Sanford and his erotic tanline sonnets. Don’t cry for him, Argentina.
Guess were back to the Mormon, the Huck, and the Newt.
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An interesting set of posts.
And Franken is considered a clown but Sanford, as an example, is not???
Congratualations Al. The election was won according to the due legal processes in our country and Coleman’s withdrawal is an explicit admission of this fact.
And the GOP can continue to view their continuingly imploding minority status. Perhaps when the situation becomes desparate enough they will choose to actually act like a true opposition party with actual alternative policies.
Then again, maybe they wont.
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Al Franken has acted like a true gentleman and statesman throughout this hole process. He has been modest, polite, and grateful. Al Franken has more than proved he has the grace a comity that has long been prized in the Senate. More than Senator Inhofe, that’s for sure.
I listened to Al Franken for almost his entire stint at Air America. He’s more of a policy wonk than many Senators, and I believe he will be a great champion of working class America. I wish Senator Franken much legislative success.
Watching him being sworn in today, I’m proud to have contributed to his campaign and legal fund.
I just wish the Senate Republicans would get out of the way and allow our representatives vote on the issues so critical to us all. If Senate Republicans have an ounce of compassion they should vote for cloture if Democrats muster 58 votes. Otherwise they may force the Democrats to risk the lives of two great men to break a filibuster. That’s despicable, especially considering it wasn’t that long ago when these same Republican Senators cried in union that their legislation deserved an up or down vote. This Senate minority has been, by far, the most obstructionist in the history of the country. They have forced cloture votes on just about everything.
I don’t know why Obama and the Democratic leadership continue to entertain the notion of bipartisanship by allowing Republicans to introduce “poison pill” amendments and then vote to filibuster the legislation anyway. Crazy
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It is sad that in America votes are counted and recounted until the “right” person is declared the winner. The winner should be whoever got the most legitimate votes according to the agreed-upon process.
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Kyle A post 21,
instead you would prefer that the votes not be counted? An interesting argument for democracy.
Automated voting systems would appear to have a perhaps 5% or so margin or error. As such to not recount in a close election is undemocratic.
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But they didn’t count all the votes, Musing, no matter how you slice it.
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KI post 22,
I suggest that history shows that it is impossible to count all the votes. Indeed there is a continuing disagreement about what all the votes even means.
And no matter how many times we recount all the votes which we all agree are the votes, we still find differences.
We therefore set up the voting procedures, many of which include an automatic recount if the vote is within a certain margin, provide procedures for recounts, provide procedures for appealing the recounts, and in the end if we are to be a land of laws and not people we accept the legal outcome.
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KI post 22,
indeed to insist on other than the legal process (including the revision of the legal process when appropriate) is to argue against the very meaning of voting and democracy in general. Rather one is saying that one’s own opinion should be the deciding opinion, and in the end one is arguing for a government by people not laws.
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A clown with BA in political science cum laude from Harvard who has written four books that made the NYT bestseller list. He was also a Harvard fellow for a couple of years.
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A Clown is still a clown no matter how you dress it up. Being from Hav-ard and an Ivy League graduate proves nothing, or at least that’s what many on this blog said about “W.”
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The election was flat out stolen by Dems and their accomplices in ACORN.
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Whoa there Ivan. Though I do not know you from Adam, and though you may care neither for representing Christ nor our country, you surely don’t want to come across as another raving conspiracy theorist. Don’t let these provocateurs work you into a frenzy.
That GWB went Ivy Leagues may only show that there are some exceptions (as with any large institutions, and especially when the parents have lots of power and influence). Unless we can show that Franken has been as reckless and as boneheaded in his responsibilities as GWB, Arcadia’s point stands.
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Ivan,
Dumbya never went to Harvard. He family-named it into Yale.
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Ivan-
Have you heard the Obama Birhter conspiracy story? I think it’s right up your alley.
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For over four years I have offered simple advice when there’s a voting controversy in America. Paper ballots marked with a pencil and counted by hand. Mandatory judicial recount when the margin of victory is lower than the margin of error.
About three years ago I spent an hour counting ballots at my polling station. A “returning officer” (a temporary employee of Elections Canada; usually a senior citizen or stay at home parent) does the official count and is watched or assisted by party volunteers.
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“Senator” Al Franken sworn in
Ha ha ha.
I’m hoping that looks more passive aggressive than was intended. Otherwise it might have to be
“Journalist” Jacob Parrish writes post
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My point is that if a recount should occur, it should be done according to agreed-upon rules from the outset. Not one ballot should be checked until the procedure is determine and both parties sign agreements that they accept the procedure and will abide by the results.
It’s the recount after recount until a certain party wins that bohters me. It’s like a third-world country, for heaven’s sake.
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“Journalist” Jacob Parrish writes post
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I look at the over done glee by several of the liberals on this post and can only shake my head. Even if Franken (the jerk) had won fair and square the tone of the liberals here is deplorable.
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Oh please Monty. Go back and take a look at the tone in many of your posts — pot meet kettle. It is amusing to see conservatives moan and whine about the tone of those who disagree with them. Ironic but they don’t seem to see the irony.
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ivantheterrible post 27,
last I checked therer were no qualifications for office based on profession. If Franken is a clown he is a professional clown.
What counts in terms of office I suggest is the understanding and thoughrfulness brought to the office. Shall we now discuss the present politicians who by this standard are clearly clowns?
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ivantheterrible post 27,
no actually the election was decided in accordance with the applicable state laws. You would appear to be making the same logically fallacious error that KI is making.
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Kyle A post 34,
agreed. but do note that if there is disagreement about what the rules are, then as established, one of the rules is to take the results to court to appeal the decision.
That was done in accordance with the rules and the election was resolved legally in accordance with the previously established rules.
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It would seem that some here are arguing that this election was resolved unfairly. The usual mantra is make every vote count.
I suggest that this is a disngenuous mantra on several criutical counts and rather is in this case being used as a smoke screen to cover their disappointment at the result.
If one looks back at the whole point of democratic electoral processes it would appea to be to determine the will of the people. This sounds simple, but is frought with challenges at literally every step of the way.
First: will of what people? Which people? How do we determine who should be allowed to vote?
- hence the civil rights laws including the voting rights act
- and you will still see discussion on whether certain people (how about homeless people?) should be allowed to vote
Second: what process do you use to enroll people for voting?
- if this process itself discourages certain demographics of the elgible voters (which itself of course is a subject of discussion), have we counted all the votes?
- do remember that acorn as it generally runs is merely registering voters in accordance with local law.
- motor voting approaches are the same
o I suggest that anyone who imposes any form of limitations on how elgible voters may enroll is not interesting in counting every vote
Third: are the elgible voters able to vote?
- what is the districting rules established: this dramatically impacts the value of votes in certain elections
- does one purge the rolls of nominally inelgible voters? under what conditions? Do remember the now infamous incorrect purging of voter roles of people thought to be but who were not felons
- what about absentee ballots? Do these get counted?
- what about provisional ballots do these get counted?
- what about polling locations? Hours? announcment of locations?
- what about malicious announcements that polling dates or places have changed?
o unless there are efforts to ensure that all of these challenges do not cause a vote to be lost, there is no effort to count all the votes
Fourth, peculiarly enough (c.f. the 2008 Republican primary process) one man one vote approaches do not mean that each vote has equal value: see “Gaming the Vote”
- with more than two candidates, the vote can be diluted (hence the danger of third parties)
- with only two candidates, it is not obvious that even one will represent the true will of the people
o unless the voting procedures are established to ensure that every vote has at leat the opportunity to ensure equal weight, we have not counted all the votes
Fifth: unless the counting process is truly objective, we have not counted all the votes
)
- all counting proceses have errors (but what, no one is going to challenge my 5% number?
- given the issues in items one through three, there are disputes about which votes to count
o the best on can do is establsh as Kyle A suggests the rules in advance and when there is disagreement over what the rules meant, appeal to the courts for resolution
And I suggest that anyone who focuses on only one of these items is not interested in ensuring that every vote counts. They are merely complaining that the outcome was not what they wished for.
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Every recout benefitted Franken. But the first recount did not benefit Franken enough to overtake Coleman, so they had to keep doing recounts until Franken wom. Recounts were selectively done by very different counting standards in different precincts such that all recounts would all benefit Franken, regardless of whether it was in a pro-Dem or pro-Republican precinct (very strict standards were used in pro-Republican districts and very loose re-counting standards were used in leftists districts).
All this was overseen by a virulently partisan Democrat Secretary of State. This re-election in Minnesota was a sham, a shame and a fraud in all the most obvious ways. Coleman won it outright from the start and it was taken from him outright by Democrat operatives in high places shamelessly defying the consent of the people. The fraud was transparent. I suspect that it gives an extram measure of joy to Democrats not merely to win but to win by undemocratic means. That gives them a solid confidence that the future is theirs by any means necessary.
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The only legal standard that applied in Minnesota was that absloutely no Democrat can lose a close election, regardless of the legality or legitimacy of the process. Close elections can and will go against Republicans in the end, no matter what. The Democrats now have a lock on this. From this point forward, Republicans must win decisively or they simply will not win, period.
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Every recout benefitted Franken.
Outrageous! Candidates should take turns benefiting from subsequent recounts.
All this was overseen by a virulently partisan Democrat Secretary of State.
. . . who reduced Coleman’s lead from 726 votes down to 215 votes three days after the election, when he posted the official results. That’s a theft of more than 500 votes from Coleman, and a FISHY DEVIATION from the average theft of 1,500 votes — triple the norm. He clearly was up to something, trying so hard not to look virulently partisan!
Coleman won it outright from the start and it was taken from him outright by Democrat operatives . . .
Coleman rightly declared himself the victor! He properly suggested that Franken do the decent thing and stop the recount that was required by law. But no, Franken was unwilling to think of what was best for Minnesota.
. . . very strict standards were used in pro-Republican districts and very loose re-counting standards were used in leftists districts . . .
Which is why Coleman had to challenge so many ballots, 3,377 in all. Coleman challenged 99 votes more than Franken challenged. And what good did that do, when all the challenges just went to the virulently partisan Secretary of State.
The fraud was transparent.
Literally before your eyes. The counting of rejected absentee ballots was broadcast live online, for all to see! The fraud became only more obvious when a Republican former governor, Arne Carlson called on Coleman to concede! Sadly, we’ll probably never uncover the transactions that lubricated that traitorous conspiracy.
The only legal standard that applied in Minnesota was that absloutely no Democrat can lose a close election, regardless of the legality or legitimacy of the process.
Shame on the unanimously virulently partisan three-judge panel and the unanimously virulently partisan Minnesota Supreme Court.
Shame on ex-Sen. Coleman and Gov. Pawlenty for not going to the US Supreme Court, which established the correct legal standard in Bush v. Gore. That’s called a precedent. folks. It means that a Republican must win a close election, in order to make the process legitimate. What’s the matter with Pawlenty? Wasn’t he sworn to uphold the law, not to acquiesce to fraud?
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Scroop
How quaint you are. You actually expect fact-based argumentation to carry the day. You have to argue from the gut and from what you fervently believe, then, only then will be believed as speaking an approximation of truth (appropriate trademarks and copyrights applied).
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Joel Mark post 42/43,
We have already seen in “Palin Resigning as Governor” that Joel Mark appears to confound his ideological perspective for fact. When pressed to support his nominal factual statements, his response appears to be to just repeat without substantiation his ideologiucal perspective even when portions of it are clearly shown to be incorrect.
And it would seem that Joel is doing it again.
It amuses me that Joel Mark would even pretend that his views should be considered substantively when he provides such little substantion to support his supposed points.
Scroop Moth has nicely called him on it and Coyoteblue arguably nails the coffin shut.
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JOel Mark post 42,
now Joel raises an interestng point when he notes:
“Every recout benefitted Franken.”
Now there are two obvious possiblities to explain this situation.
The first, and the one Joel appears to raise, is that there were inproprieties in the counting. Fair enough, except for the following:
a) Scroop points out the high level of transaprency of the process
b) the count was reviewed by the courts at least twice and Coleman’s assertion of improper standards were refuted by the courts
c) as shown in Gore V. Bush, if indeed there are serious errors in the treatment of the ballots, then this violates equal protection standards, and the supreme court is indeed an appropriate venue to pursue this: Coleman, probably wisely, chose not to pursue this route. He would probably have looked very silly
We can safely say then that for the ballots which have been counted there are no inproprieties.
As I noted, however, in post 41, there are many stages in the process by which the vote of a citizen can either be not counted or discounted. Given that Joel is not able to substantiate inpropriety, the process was transparent, AND the recounts continued to build Franken’s lead the most plausible conclusion is that there were systemic errors of the form 5 which unduly penalized Franken voters.
As such, the recount is indeed the appropriate mechanism to correct this imbalanced penalization.
And since every recount and the appeals were part of the process as specfied before the campaign began, there is no grounds for anyone to argue that the rules were changed in mid-count.
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#46, Musing, I do not expect my comments to be taken seriously or respected my you. But I am grateful for this forum in which I can practice my freedom of speech. Minnesota has been cheated, badly. I’ve watched it happen step by step.
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Joel Mark post 48,
I am delighted that you continue to practice your freedom of speech. It makes the conservative argument less sustainable in this blog the more you continue.
If you assert that Minnesota was cheated badly, you have yet to explain why Coleman did not then go on to the Supreme Court, which already had a precedent for reviewing elections in which unequal treatment of ballots occurred.
You indeed probably did watch it step by step. As we have see repeatedly with you, it would appear that your ideology blinds you to what is plausiubly the objective facts of the situation.
Or shall we go back and review the economic crisis of the 70s and show that that was worse than the economic crisis today?
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