Hullabaloo

Friday, February 20, 2009

 
Strong Investment

by dday

This endless trial in Minnesota over their US Senate election is really working out well for the Republicans. Norm Coleman's lawyers get to make any wild charge they want, contradicting themselves over what ballots should count and what shouldn't, and in the meantime, the winner of the election, Al Franken, isn't seated as the 59th Democratic Senator, making it harder to break the obstructionism and making the Senate more reliant on the Axis of Presidents Nelson and Collins. It's a great little racket they've got going. So they decided to keep funding it.

The Republican National Committee has transferred $250,000 to the Minnesota GOP to help pay legal fees in Norm Coleman’s ongoing recount battle against Al Franken for the Minnesota Senate seat.

A spokesman for the RNC, Alex Conant, said the committee had made Coleman’s legal battle “a priority because we think he has a case and because we think he deserves to return to the Senate.” The money was transferred last month.

“We certainly appreciate the RNC’s commitment to Minnesota as we are continuing full speed ahead,” said Minnesota Republican Party spokeswoman Gina Countryman.

While the RNC cannot legally earmark funds for specific purposes, RNC sources said the deposit was made under the presumption that it would benefit Coleman’s campaign.

Later in the article it is noted that Coleman has raised $5 million dollars since the election to fund this gambit.

It's amusing to see the RNC baldly say that they "deserve" the seat up there, but that's not what's going on. It's just easy to keep making motions and keep calling witnesses while key legislation gets blocked in the Senate. And yes, one Senator does make a difference. Greg Sargent writes today:

One wild-card in the whole looming battle over the Employee Free Choice Act that’s gotten too little attention is this: When will Al Franken be seated as a Senator?

Labor officials say they’re reluctant to really kick off the battle over Employee Free Choice — a measure to make it easier to unionize that is labor’s top priority — until Franken is officially a member of the Senate.

Indeed, Minnesota’s other Senator, Amy Klobuchar, confirmed yesterday during an event in the state that the Senate has decided not to move on Employee Free Choice until Franken is seated, the Minnesota Post reports. If the House of Representatives pushes for the Senate to vote first on the measure, as expected, this could hold up the fight that much longer.

$250,000 or $5 million is a small price to pay for the Big Money Boyz to keep workers from forming unions. And in addition to gumming up the works for months upon months, they get to delegitmize the electoral process, as well as Al Franken's claim to the seat. It's a really nice investment for them. Better than anything in the stock market these days.


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dday 2/20/2009 05:30:00 PM