Miller: Murkowski’s Seniority Doesn’t Matter … Because Earmarks Are Done (VIDEO)

Candidate for U.S. Senate Joe Miller (R-AK)
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Republican Joe Miller argued yesterday that expediting his Alaska Senate lawsuit is unnecessary because there’s no “evidence at all” that suggests Sen. Lisa Murkowski will lose her seniority if she’s not seated by January 3. But even if she did, Miller said, who cares, because the House might ban earmarks anyway.

“What exactly are we getting for it?” he asked.

An Alaska judge fast tracked Miller’s suit this week, saying that “we need to resolve this matter at this state court level just as soon as we can.” Miller’s suit argues that the state unlawfully counted misspelled write-in ballots as votes for Murkowski. He is asking for a full recount of all of the votes cast in the election.

Murkowski, who lost to Miller in the Republican primary but came out ahead after a write-in campaign, has raised $245,000 for her legal bills related to Miller’s suit. Arguments in the suit are scheduled for next Wednesday.

Murkowski’s attorney had argued that Murkowski could lose her seniority in the Senate if she is not seated by January 3, because of a “gap in service.”

Miller talked to KTVA in Alaska yesterday about Murkowski’s seniority, and said “I don’t think there’s any evidence at all that suggests that kind of a danger.”

But, he continued, “we”ve got to scratch our heads and ask: ‘What does that mean for the state of Alaska?’ Already we know that the House of Representatives, for example, is gonna block any appropriations containing earmarks, and yet that’s one of the things that her seniority can supposedly provide to us.”

“Like I said during the campaign, that era is over,” Miller said.

Watch:

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