Al Versus Norm, Part 443

The Norm Coleman Mulligan Express gains steam.

I've been picking up word that Republicans on the Hill genuinely think Norm Coleman is going to get the results of the November elections tossed and have a revote. And if not genuinely, that they've all convinced themselves to say they believe it. As I told one friend who passed word on to me about this, the Coleman people must be smoking some powerful weed. Because nothing that has happened in the trial gives the remotest indication that anything like that will happen. Indeed, there's simply no basis in Minnesota law for throwing out the results of an election. To be clear, I think it's highly unlikely that the Court will come down with a judgment that will make it possible to Coleman to reclaim his seat. There's just no indication of that. But while that's very unlikely, actually throwing out the results entirely isn't even on the menu of options the judges have before them.

Now, here's one thing to consider. Are the Republicans trying to lay the groundwork for filibustering any effort to seat Franken, even after the state of Minnesota tells Norm it's over and he has to go home? Keep an eye out for it.

Josh is dead on the money. The GOP will do everything they can to assure Al Franken is never seated, but I'll go even further: the play here is filibustering the motion to seat him until the matter can go before Roberts/Scalia/Thomas/Alito and pick up that fifth opinion to force some sort of national standard on voting supression that favors the GOP. The goal is to make sure that the votes thrown out or counted in the future favor Republican voters.

That's the real issue here. The GOP is going for broke here, and they know they only way to get away with this kind of crap in the Obama era is to jam it through the Supremes. The GOP smells an opening here, and Obama and the Democrats need to shut this noise down immediately.