Klobuchar suggests temporary senator be sworn in

[babsbunny]

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/klobuchar-suggests-temporary-senator-be-sworn-in-2008-12-29.html

By Reid Wilson
Posted: 12/29/08 11:38 AM
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) suggested this weekend that the Senate swear in the winner of a preliminary vote count in her state's razor-thin election, contingent on litigation almost sure to drag on for weeks.

Klobuchar's senior colleague, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), is likely to send lawyers to court to stop the state Canvassing Board from declaring satirist Al Franken (D) the winner when the board finishes counting outstanding absentee ballots next week.

"If the Canvassing Board declares a winner, that should be our senator," Klobuchar told the Minneapolis Star Tribune this weekend. The Senate "could seat a senator pending litigation."

[camera obscura]

1. Why not? They swore in Landrieu in '96.

It's pretty clear that Franken is the winner, anyway. Coleman is just putting off the inevitable so the Dems won't have another vote for Obama's agenda.

[JDPriestly]

2. The Senate has the last word on judging elections for the Senate.

They should just go ahead and judge that the pick of the Canvassing Board is the winner. Let it go to the Supreme Court if necessary. The Constitution says that the Senate is the judge of the elections to the Senate.

[kcks]

3. question

So as a new member I have a question if Coleman had the same size would members here want Him sworn in temporally?

[Liberal Gramma]

4. I wouldn't.

But then I'm not here at this board to promote the finer points of democracy, but to promote Democrats.

[Winterblues]

5. Probably not but the rules do say the Senate has final say.

We are a Partisan board believe it or not...

[Stevepol]

6. If that person had won with a fair recount of the kind done in MN

I'd have no problem with that. But not if the election result was uncertain or cloaked in suspicion and charges of fraud.

The problem is that almost every election in the US is uncertain (unless there's an open and transparent recount or audit). When the vote is counted in total secrecy by private companies without verification using machines that have been shown in every serious study to be laughably open to hacking or patching or fraudulent programming, especially by insiders, it's impossible to be sure who the winner is. It's also impossible to have a democracy, which is the reason we don't have a democracy at the moment.

By the way, it's not "temporally" but "temporarily."

[Tansy_Gold]

7. If Coleman had the same size. . . . what?

sorry.