Al Franken named winner of Minnesota race; Coleman expected to challenge the result
Minnesota's election panel names Franken the winner by 225 votes over incumbent Norm Coleman. Franken, a Democrat, could be seated as early as today, but Coleman is likely to file a legal challenge.
Former comedian Al Franken was certified today as the winner of Minnesota's long-disputed U.S. Senate race, but legal challenges could leave the seat under a cloud for some time to come.
Meeting hours after the Minnesota Supreme Court rejected Republican incumbent Norm Coleman's bid to recount an additional 654 rejected absentee ballots, the state canvassing board declared Franken the winner by a 225-vote margin.
The victory would give Democrats control of 59 seats in the Senate, one short of the number required to prevent Republican filibusters.
But the former "Saturday Night Live" cast member cannot claim final victory until the results are certified by Minnesota's governor and secretary of state. That requires a seven-day waiting period following the canvassing board's finding, and certification could be delayed if Coleman files a new legal challenge, which is likely.
Democratic leaders in the Senate now must determine whether they will attempt to seat Franken provisionally, as early as Tuesday, while any challenge proceeds through the courts.
Staff members for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) have signaled that there may be an attempt to seat Franken this week -- even as Reid has refused to seat Roland W. Burris of Illinois, appointed by Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich, to fill the seat vacated by president-elect Barack Obama.
"It's conceivable that Franken could be seated tomorrow with a simple majority [vote], if no Republican were to filibuster it," Kathryn Pearson, assistant professor of political science at the University of Minnesota, said in a telephone interview.
"But it's not a good way for either party to start off opening day of a new Senate. I think everybody wants, given the economic and political circumstances, for senators on both sides of the aisle to have an incentive to start out in a spirit of bipartisan cooperation."
Coleman attorney Fritz Knaak said after the Supreme Court ruling that a legal challenge was a near certainty. The court did not rule on the merits of the campaign's ballot challenges, leaving the door open to detailed evidentiary hearings if sought by one of the campaigns.
"Today's ruling, which effectively disregards the votes of hundreds of Minnesotans, ensures that an election contest is now inevitable," Knaak said in a statement.
"The fact that the Franken campaign now rejects the notion of every valid vote being counted so they can attempt to declare victory on the basis of a broken process, and an artificial lead built on double-counting of votes, should concern all Minnesotans," he said.
Franken's attorney, Marc Elias, said the court affirmed the validity of the rules that governed the recount.
"Minnesotans have waited a long time for a winner to be declared in this race, and today, with the last attempt to halt the counting process now having failed, Al Franken will be declared the winner," he said.
kim.murphy@latimes.com
