The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled earlier this evening on Sen. Norm Coleman’s effort to block the counting of certain absentee ballots in the state’s protracted Senate recount. Let me start by saying that the opinion (.pdf) is not a model of clarity. The court ruled partly in favor of Coleman, agreeing that certain provisions of state law did not apply under these circumstances. Nonetheless, the court makes an effort, albeit an inelegant one, to craft a method for counting the absentee ballots that are in dispute. Or I should say a method for deciding whether to count the disputed absentee ballots. Herein lies the rub.
The Franken camp, which wants the rejected absentee ballots counted, has issued a statement praising the ruling as calling for all votes to be counted. But it’s not readily apparent to me that the court’s ruling will have that desired effect.
Let me say directly that I am no expert in Minnesota election law. But as I read through the opinion, I became increasingly uncomfortable with its reasoning. Then I got to the dissent (.pdf, 6th page) written by Alan Page (the former Viking and NFL Hall of Famer), which crystallizes all of the deficiencies of the majority’s opinion, which seem to me to generally accrue to Franken’s disadvantage, although, again, the Franken people don’t see it that way.
The most troubling part of the ruling is the requirement that state and local election officials and both campaigns must all agree that an absentee ballot was mistakenly rejected in order for it now to be included in the recount. Think about that for a minute. The court seems to recognize the potential for mischief here and puts the campaigns on notice that it will impose sanctions for not acting in good faith. Good luck with that.
From the FT …
Leading banks from Britain, France and Japan helped investors treble or quadruple bets on Bernard Madoff by lending billions of dollars to “feeder” funds, which placed their money with the alleged fraudster.
HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Nomura and BNP Paribas lent the money without spotting a fraud, and in at least one case without due diligence teams visiting Mr Madoff’s brokerage, which held the assets.
Norm Coleman appears to be swirling down the drain. And a big reason why is that so many of his challenges — which had puffed up his lead — were just completely ridiculous.
This may be the most ridiculous one yet.
The President will announce his plan to “rescue” U.S. automakers at 9 a.m. ET.
Late Update: The WSJ is reporting that the White House has decided to go with $17.4 billion in loans to the carmakers rather than the “orderly” bankruptcy approach.
We’ll be keeping a close eye today on the Minnesota Senate recount. That and the day’s other political news in the TPM Election Central Morning Roundup.
As one of my colleagues just remarked here, Bush is surprisingly lucid and cogent in explaining why bankruptcy is not a viable option for the automakers in the short run and why doing nothing is not viable in the short or long term.
Over the last few days a number of readers had told me they were picking up hints that the folks fleeced by Bernie Madoff might themselves come calling for a government bailout. I’d been skeptical. But now it seems like that is exactly what may be coming.
Late Update: On a related note, read Krugman’s column today on Madoff and whether he was all that much different from the rest of folks on Wall Street making gazillions and running the economy and country into the ground.