U.S. Senate
By Eric Ostermeier on August 16, 2009
As DFL Senator Al Franken inched into office by the narrowest of margins, both he and 2008 Republican opponent Norm Coleman endured negative net favorability ratings as their expensive, and frequently brutal campaigns gained neither candidate favor with a majority of Minnesotans. A few weeks out from Election Day saw...
By Eric Ostermeier on August 11, 2009
Last week's vote in the U.S. Senate confirming Sonia Sotomayor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court was noteworthy foremost, of course, for Sotomayor being the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the Court. But the Senate vote was also significant for the Republicans and what emerged...
By Eric Ostermeier on August 9, 2009
As unemployment continued to rise and economic and budget concerns reached near crisis levels across most states, several U.S. Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, saw their approval ratings slip noticeably during the first several months of 2009. One of the few Senators left seemingly unscathed by this backlash of public...
By Eric Ostermeier on August 6, 2009
In the months after President Barack Obama's selection of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, political analysts and even a few Republicans (e.g. Joe Scarborough) have characterized GOP opposition to and harsh questioning of the new Associate Justice as politically unwise. Such Republican Senators were cautioned and urged to...
By Eric Ostermeier on July 9, 2009
Two leaders from the State Capitol will be speaking at a forum hosted by the Humphrey Institute on Friday morning to pinpoint reforms that could be made in the Minnesota election system to avoid recount pitfalls in the future. DFL Senator Ann Rest (Chair of the Senate State and Local...
By Eric Ostermeier on July 5, 2009
The soon-to-be seated DFL U.S. Senator Al Franken will now be able to assist Senior Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar with the state's constituency caseload, but will not enhance the state's collective seniority ranking in Capitol Hill's upper chamber. Minnesota has the 2nd lowest level of seniority among the 50 states,...
By Eric Ostermeier on July 1, 2009
With Governor Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie signing the election certificate for the U.S. Senate seat on Tuesday evening, the 2008 Election is, after a 238-day wait, at last in the books. The 2008 U.S. Senate Election is noteworthy, of course, for its historic narrow margin of...
By Eric Ostermeier on June 30, 2009
Speaking outside his house in St. Paul on Tuesday afternoon, former Republican Senator Norm Coleman congratulated DFLer Al Franken as the new Senator from the Gopher State. Earlier this afternoon the Minnesota Supreme Court decided Franken was "entitled" to a certificate as the winner of the November election. Coleman also...
By Eric Ostermeier on June 23, 2009
Now seven and a half months out from Election Day, the U.S. Senate contest between DFLer Al Franken and Republican Norm Coleman is still providing a few yucks on late-night television. In recent weeks, Bill Maher has been a virtual Norm Coleman joke factory on his Real Time with Bill...
By Eric Ostermeier on May 7, 2009
With the recent announcement by Associate Justice David Souter that he intends to retire from the Supreme Court this year, all eyes are on President Barack Obama to see who he will send up to the U.S. Senate for confirmation hearings in the coming weeks or months. Obama, of course,...
By Eric Ostermeier on May 5, 2009
The latest round of SurveyUSA monthly polling data again shows Minnesota DFL U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar holding on to her statewide support more than any of the 25 Senators tracked by the polling organization. With a 62 percent approval rating, Klobuchar is the only Senator in the group with a...
By Eric Ostermeier on April 29, 2009
When Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Arlen Specter switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party on Tuesday morning, the first question asked was not why he bolted from the GOP, but how his change in party affiliation will impact the Democratic majority's quest for a filibuster-proof 60 votes on key legislation...
By Eric Ostermeier on April 14, 2009
With the three-judge panel ruling on Monday that Al Franken received more legally cast votes than Norm Coleman, the Minnesota 2008 U.S. Senate race moved one step closer to a final resolution. Coleman has stated he will file an appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court during the next 10 days,...
By Eric Ostermeier on April 10, 2009
At 75 years old, the longest elected U.S. Senator in Iowa history, the 11th most senior member of the U.S. Senate, and having cast more than 10,000 votes in Capitol Hill's upper chamber, Republican Senator Charles Grassley is just getting started. Or so it seems. Now 34+ years into...
By Eric Ostermeier on April 7, 2009
The latest U.S. Senate approval numbers released by SurveyUSA for the month of March find Minnesota DFLer Amy Klobuchar with the 4th highest rating of the 27 Senators tracked by the polling organization. But that's not the headline. What is noteworthy about these March numbers is how they continue...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 23, 2009
At 12:00 am Monday morning, the State of Minnesota set a new record for operating at half-strength in Capitol Hill's upper chamber. At 79 days and counting, Minnesota's current stint with only one U.S. Senator has now eclipsed the previous mark set in the summer of 1923, when it...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 15, 2009
Ethical questions have been raised in recent days surrounding the reporting by news organizations and bloggers on the leaked Norm Coleman U.S. Senate campaign pledges and contributions. Smart Politics has also received its fair share of both criticism and praise for its analysis of the compromised data, perhaps, one might...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 13, 2009
The many bits of information made available from the leak of the Norm Coleman U.S. Senate campaign donor database, posted at Wikileaks on Wednesday, gives the public a glimpse into what type of people supported the Republican incumbent's candidacy. On Thursday, Smart Politics broke down the donor data by state;...
By Eric Ostermeier on March 12, 2009
The news for Norm Coleman just keeps getting worse. Fresh off his recent attempt to sell to the public (and the three-judge panel hearing his recount challenge) that the State of Minnesota should hold a new election, the private information of nearly 5,000 donors to his political campaign was...
By Eric Ostermeier on February 19, 2009
As the Minnesota U.S. Senate election trial ends its fourth week on Friday, partisan criticisms against Norm Coleman continue to mount from the left. Coleman has been accused of belaboring an election process which has left the Gopher State now without its full complement of Senators in D.C. for 47...
