Coleman was proposing something like 5 mini trials extending over something like 8 weeks, and the Minnesota Election Court has gone with something more expedited.
The trial will start Jan 26, assuming that Franken’s motion to dismiss is not accepted on the 21st.
Length is indeterminate. A strict 15 day limit on the trial, which Franken wanted, was about the only time that they went with Coleman, so there is no hard deadline.
**Sigh**
You can find the full text here.
My quick take, is that I would like to see:
That’s based on a 15 minute read of the summary, though.
I have no clue as to what Norm Coleman and His Evil Minions&trade are trying, but the schedule his proposed to the judges who have been assigned to his challenge mean that it would be at least 6 weeks before they finish.
That seems to me to be a good way to piss off said judges.
If he actually thought that he really won, I would imaging that he would be trying to move this along quickly.
I have no clue as to what is going on, except that perhaps Republicans are paying him a lot of money to keep this up so that Franken does not vote in the Senate.
I’m not following this particularly closely, as I believe that the overarching policy will be coming from Barack Obama, but we had the two big ones today, Holder and Clinton.
Regarding Holder, he has said that he will review the determination not to prosecute Bradley Schlozman, who clearly lied to Congress, though I would still expect not to see a prosecution.
More heartening is that he explicitly said that water-boarding is torture.
I expect the Republicans to continue to fling poo, but I think that he will be approved.
Also, the Foreign Relations Committee voted for Clinton as Secretary of State 16-1 with Senator “Diaper” Vitter voting against.
To the tune of $33 billion, and this time, Bush won’t be around to veto it.
Cool.
Every 2 years, both houses of Congress need to pass an organizing resolution, which specifies things like committee members for the various parties.
Because the Senate is a continuing body, only 1/3 are reelected at a time, and this organizing resolution is subject to filibuster, I was fully expecting the ‘Phants to do Harry Reid like a two dollar whore.
I’m pleasantly surprised that Reid got exactly what he wanted, with no filibuster.
The Democrats gets +3 on most committees, +4 on the Appropriations and Armed Services committees, +1 on the Intel Committee (decreed by statute), +2 on the Joint Economic Committee, and even membership on the Ethics Committee (which is standard).
The reason that this happened, I think, is that if they had continued to operate under the old organizing resolution, the Dems would have been at +5 on Appropriations, which would have made things rather tough for the ‘Phants.
Here is the money quote:
Jackson supported Burris’ effort to claim the seat to which he was appointed by Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich but criticized him for allowing his supporters to play the race card. This “racialization of the Senate seat is going to be a profound problem for Democrats,” Jackson told Politico.
While I agree with the sentiment, this is Representative Jackson’s first salvo in a primary battle.
Watch the whole thing. It’s only 1 minutee 12s.
Seriously.
In Minnesota, we have about 365 Franken voters filing suit so that they can get their votes counted, and Franken has answered Coleman’s suit with one of his own.
Basically he is arguing that Minnesota elections law requires that Franken now be certified the winner by the Secretary of State and Governor, and they are claiming that a different section of that law forbids it.
Hopefully, this is all over in weeks, rather than months.
Meanwhile, in Rahm Emanuel’s old seat, the Chicago machine cannot decide who to get behind, which gives Tom Geoghegan, who is the only one credible candidate outside the Chicago machine a leg up in the special election.
Geoghegan is a long time labor lawyer and activist, and he is the best candidate running.
We have Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek announcing that he will run for the seat being vacated by Mel Martinez (R) who is retiring after 1 term.
Meanwhile, in Ohio, the scramble to replace George Voinovich (R) in the Senate proceeds apace, with Rob Portman being the front-runner on the ‘Phant side, and on the Democratic side, it appears that most of Ohio’s Congressional delegation, along with the Lt. Gov and SOS, are considering a run.
Reid and Durbin complete their climbdown from their unsteady moral high ground, and accept that Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s appointment of Roland Burris is in order, and they will seat him.
Well, at least it’s over.
It’s no fun being in the minority, so he’s calling it a day.
It appears to be a nearly party-line vote, and I would expect a filibuster in the Senate, because being pro-discrimination is about all that the ‘Phants have left.
The Illinois house just impeached Blagojevich, sending him to the State Senate for trial.
Roland Burris had the State Supreme Court refuse to force the Secretary of State to sign his certificate of appointment to the Senate, which is actually a victory, because they said his certificate is valid anyway:
…Petitioners are not entitled to an order from this court requiring the Secretary to perform those Acts. Under the Secretary of State Act, the Secretary’s sole responsibility was to register the appointment (15 ILCS 305/5(2) (West 2006)), which he did. No further action is required by the Secretary of State or any other official to make the Governor’s appointment of Roland Burris to the United States Senate valid under Illinois law.
One final thought: Please, God, make it stop!!!!
Pelosi has the right idea.
She is arguing for immediate repeal of tax cuts for people making more than $¼ million a year.
I like this for 2 reasons:
The you only need two republicans, plus Uncle Joe Lieberman, to get this through the Senate, and you do not even need them on a budget bill, though there other 60 vote (actually 59 right now with 2 vacant seats) hoops to jump through.
Senator Kit Bond (R-MO) will not seek reelection in 2010.
He’ll be turning 70 next year, and that, along with the prospect of being in the minority for the foreseeable future, probably led to this decision.
This should be a competitive race.
The news that Citi is supporting cramdown legislation (with some conditions) is heartening.
However, it does raise some questions, most notably, “Why, after being bailed out by the US government, do they have a seat at the table at all,” and “Why are they supporting this at all?”
As to the first question, I put it down to the corruption that is Washington, DC business as usual.
As to the second, I am sure that part of this is a desire to be in on the process to shape it in the most advantageous way possible, but I think the real interest here is that Citi manages a lot of mortgages for the holders of mortgage backed securities, and as such, they carry much of the costs of a foreclosure process, but they carry none of the costs of s cram-down.
Chris Matthews is not running for Pennsylvania Senate.
Thank God.
My guess is that it was a ploy he used in negotiations.
Well, the incoming House of Representatives has adopted the new rules for the 111 House of Representatives.
Because the house is elected every two years, it’s easier to change the rules than in the Senate, which is technically a continuing body, because 2/3 of its members are returning every Congress.
The changes made are generally fairly obscure, but the important ones are changing the motion to recommit such that a report must returned “forthwith”, rather than “promptly” and eliminating term limits on committee chairs.
The change in the motion to recommit means that a motion to ammend a bill must be voted on then and there, as opposed to being sent back to committee, where, at best it is delayed, and frequently dies.
The Republicans have been using it for some time to obstruct legislation.
The end of term limits for committee chairmen is also an improvement, though less of one.
It return the chairman system to one that is largely based on seniority, though the case of Waxman beating out Dingell at the Energy and Commerce Committee shows that it is not universal.
I’m not a fan of seniority determining who is chairman of a committee, but under the Republicans, it became pay-to-play for chairmanships, which is worse.
Also interesting is a provision for the House to continue its contempt of Congress actions against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolton, which means that they might have a receptive Attorney General actually enforce the subpoenas for them to testify.
Of course if I were in Congress, I would trying to get the House Sergeant at Arms to arrest them and lock them in the House basement, which was last done in the 1930s.
This is why you should be glad that I am not in Congress.