Now here’s something interesting in the Minnesota Senate trial, which is sure to be appealed to the state Supreme Court: As Senate Guru over at MyDD points out, one of the state Supreme Court justices has in the past donated to Norm Coleman.
In the years before he was appointed to the state bench, Christopher Dietzen was a private attorney and occasional Republican donor, including a check for $250 to Coleman in December 2001, and another $250 for the current cycle in January 2004. The Hill also points out Dietzen served as a campaign counsel for GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty, during the 2002 open-seat race.
A spokesman for the state Supreme Court told TPM that no information is available about any possible recusal. Since there hasn’t been an actual ruling in the trial, much less the filing of an appeal, we don’t know and cannot predict what would happen.
The question here is the degree to which Dietzen’s pre-judicial activities might impact the legitimacy of the proceedings. For my own part, having watched all the legal arguments in this election, I haven’t noticed any severe or obvious political bias on Dietzen’s part — he has sometimes ruled against Franken, and sometimes ruled against Coleman. And he’s pitched tough questions at both sides.
And there’s another problem here: If Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Associate Justice Barry Anderson were to recuse themselves from the appeal — which they’ve done in prior litigation here, because they served on the specially-formed State Canvassing Board — then having Dietzen leave would reduce the court to only four members out of seven. And who knows, Associated Justice Alan Page might be called upon to recuse himself, too, because he selected the three judges on the trial court, which would bring us down to three, less than half of the total number of judges.
