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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (10721)	4/8/2009 9:20:48 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

Supervised by??????????????? :-)

To: longnshort who wrote (10721)	4/8/2009 9:21:47 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 103300

Coleman-Franken Senate Race May Hinge on Bush v. Gore Decision By Greg Stohr bloomberg.com April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Republican Norm Coleman’s dwindling chances of reclaiming his U.S. Senate seat largely depend on a broad reading of the Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore decision, a ruling the court itself said should be applied sparingly. Democrat Al Franken’s lead over Coleman in the Minnesota race widened to 312 votes yesterday -- a gain of 87 -- because of a court-supervised count of 351 additional absentee ballots. Coleman’s remaining legal avenues include his claim that election officials violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause by using varying standards to decide the validity of absentee ballots. That contention relies on Bush v. Gore, the 5-4 ruling that sealed the 2000 presidential election for George W. Bush. “As a practical matter, Coleman has no realistic prospect of success without the equal protection argument,” said Edward Foley, director of the election-law program at Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law in Columbus. Democrats control the U.S. Senate 58-41, and a win by Franken would put them one vote short of the 60 needed to overcome filibusters that can stall legislation. The candidates are awaiting a three-judge panel’s final decision in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Coleman’s challenge to the earlier recount that put Franken, 57, ahead in the race. Should Coleman lose, he could appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court and, ultimately, ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his equal protection argument. Bush v. Gore Ruling Winning with that argument won’t be easy. When the Supreme Court ruled for Bush over Democrat Al Gore on Dec. 12, 2000, the five justices in the majority went out of their way to caution against application of the decision in other contexts. “Our consideration is limited to the present circumstances, for the problem of equal protection in election processes generally presents many complexities,” the majority said. Indeed, the high court has yet to cite Bush v. Gore in the 600-plus rulings it has released since then, and lower courts generally have proven reluctant to use the ruling as grounds for invalidating state voting procedures. Two federal appeals court decisions have concluded that Bush v. Gore doesn’t require that each voting place in a state use the same type of equipment, though a third ruling recently let a challenge to Ohio’s voting systems move forward. A broad reading of Bush v. Gore is “one that some lower courts have flirted with but so far has been rejected,” said Richard L. Hasen, an election-law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. State Law Grounds Coleman’s lawyers are also vowing to invoke state law grounds on appeal should the three-judge panel side with Franken. The Republican, who won the seat in 2002 and was seeking re-election, also could file a new lawsuit in federal court based on the Constitution’s due process clause. The equal protection argument has drawn public support from several top Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Coleman, 59, contended in a Jan. 21 court filing that ballot rejection rates were more than 9 percent in some counties and less than 1 percent in others. He pointed to indications that some counties, but not all, rejected ballots that lacked the complete address of the required witness. He urged the three-judge panel to address the inconsistent standards by counting as many as 11,000 previously rejected absentee ballots. ‘Specific Standards’ “The U.S. Supreme Court has held that if a state fails to adopt ‘specific standards’ during a statewide recount that will ensure ‘equal application’ to all votes, the lack of uniform standards violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment,” Coleman argued, quoting from Bush v. Gore. Still, Coleman’s objections differ from those the high court found in 2000, when it blocked a recount in Florida because election officials were using different standards to determine the validity of punch-card ballots. In contrast, Hasen says, Coleman’s claims center on alleged problems that occurred during the original count and that were largely addressed during the recount by election officials and the trial court. In addition, Coleman’s proposed remedy would require the counting of ballots that don’t comply with state election rules, he adds. “The equal protection argument requires a very liberal reading of Bush v. Gore, and it is one that is unlikely to prevail,” said Hasen. And even a ruling that Minnesota violated the equal protection clause wouldn’t necessarily mean victory for Coleman in the election. A ruling that concerned only one or two challenged practices -- for example, the alleged failure of some counties to verify that the witness was registered to vote -- probably wouldn’t put enough votes in play to let Coleman overcome Franken’s lead, Foley said. A court might simply order officials to count those ballots that were rejected because the witness wasn’t registered. “Does that overcome a 312-vote lead?” Foley said. “Probably not.” To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net. Last Updated: April 8, 2009 00:01 EDT