From the WSJ:
Unable to declare a partisan bias to it, the WSJ now says that the judges must be incompetant. Nice.
If my guy was obviously going to lose, I’d be calling for a do-over as well.
No, the hearing involves findings of fact, if I’m not mistaken, so that’s never an appeal.
There are situations where direct appeal to the ultimate authority is a good idea. In some such cases, the state’s constitution or statutes may be set up to accommodate that. Thankfully.
I agree that it’s not an appeal. But the Election Contest Hearing is at an appellate level, similar to a case from the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Any appeal from this goes directly to the Minnesota Supreme Court (Statutes 209.10 sub 4). In fact, that statute even says that such an appeal “takes precedence over all other matters before the Supreme Court”. So it goes right to the top of their calendar, and they are likely to move real fast to deal with this.
If by “article” you mean “editorial slanted so far to the right that it disturbs the planet’s rotation”, sure.
That presupposes that Norm is going to move real fast to get it filed. I’m betting he takes the entire 10 days.
Well, monday evening through saturday evening is 5 days, so he’s halfway there. We should know for sure by next thursday evening.
One of Coleman’s lawyers said on a local radio station today that “if I have anything to say about it,” the process will take years. He was all but admitting that the goal is simply to obstruct the seat as long as possible.
Sounds like it’s time for Minnesotans to hire a good class action lawyer.
Well, sure – remember that he is being paid for all those ‘years’.
The car trunk story was originally made up by Coleman laywer Fritz Knack, who never backed it up and eventually backed off it after it was debunked, but the WSJ went one step further and fabricated an utterly bogus assertion that Cindy Reichart had issued an “announcement…that she’d forgotten to count 32 absentee ballots in her car.”
Tim Pawlenty repeated the lie as well, and so did Fox News. As far as I know, neither Pawlenty nor Fox News nor the WSJ have ever issued any retractions.
Fox News also falsely reported that all of the 32 votes had gone to Franken when the count was really 18-7-7.
As for the WSJ article above, like all of its coverage of this story, it sounds like they’re basically just printing everything verbatim that they get from Coleman’s lawyers. The “double-counted ballots” allegation is just as bogus as the car trunk, as anyone would know who’d ever read the court decision.
The Wall Street Journal is now owned by Rupert Murdoch, and it shows.
The funny thing about it is that he more or less admits that too. The lawyer I’m talking about is Coleman’s current lead attorney, Joe Friedberg, who is pretty much a political liberal, and who has publicly admitted that he didn’t vote for Coleman, but that a client is a client, and he’s going to do the work and take the checks.
I can’t swear that he wasn’t being tongue in cheek. It would be just like him.
COLEMAN APPEALS TO STATE SUPREME COURT
Norm Coleman has kept his word and filed a notice of petition to appeal his election-contest loss today to the Minnesota Supreme Court (pdf’s)
Does the Minnesota Supreme Court have the discretion to decline the case?
While it is true that it goes right up, what is your basis for saying that it is “at an appellate level similar to a case from [sic] the Minnesota Court of Appeals?”
An appeal is a case that has had findings of fact, and then those findings, along with any legal arguments, are taken to a higher authority for review. If there was no prior finding of fact, then the case is not appellate in any way.
Now, if the members of the judicial body that heard the Election Contest are all appellate judges, then I understand what you are saying.
ETA: @ BrainGlutton: Probably not. Since this is the only appeal available, due process would require that the Court hear the appeal.
Note that Norm hasn’t appealed yet; he’s just announced that he will be appealing. It’s still eight days yet before he actually does appeal.
The second link says he’s already filed.
From what I’ve heard, they’re required to review it, but on the plus side, they don’t have to hear oral arguments.
They will schedule them, mark my words.
Used to be, we had hardly any lawyers on the Board, now we got…what?..eight, maybe ten? No good can come of this.
Is there any way that Franken can appeal his own self right away, just to limit Norm’s ability to run the clock?