George S. May Business Blog

Why Minnesota is affected the most Arlen Specter’s decision

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who has served nearly five terms as a Republican, said today that he is switching parties and will run for reelection next year as a Democrat.

Should Specter’s get the votes, the most talked about repercussions are that Democrats would have a 60-seat majority in the Senate, a margin that would allow Democrats to break Republican filibusters.

Well, not so fast. We still have Minnesota.

If you remember correctly, the Minnesota Senate race is heading to the state Supreme Court, where Republican Norm Coleman is appealing an election trial that concluded with a three-judge panel ruling that Franken had finished 312 votes ahead. Therefore, with Specter’s announcement in mind, the race for Senate has become a race for majority.

 ”The stakes have just gotten much higher,” said Richard Hasen, an expert on election law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “Whether or not Specter formally caucuses with the Democrats, if he actually hopes to win a Democratic primary and be elected, he’s going to have to go along with the Democratic program this term. This means that a Franken win would give Democrats a 60-seat filibuster proof majority”.

Furthermore, with this announcement Arlen Specter has inadvertently extended the legal deliberations for the Minnesota Senate. Think about it like this: forget Specter’s announcement and the implications of a Democratic 60-seat majority. Let us pretend for a moment that it never happened. Now, fast forward to the future, where, hypothetically, the Supreme Court finds that Coleman did in fact rightfully lose the election. What is the next step for Coleman and the Republican party? Likely to, well, step down and admit defeat, right? Coleman could of course muster up the tenacity and appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, but it is not as if he will have Republican Senators coming to his side, urging him to continue fighting. Well, now that a 60-seat majority could be on the line with the Coleman v Franken decision, do we really think that the reaction from Republican leaders across the country will be the same? Of course not. If Coleman loses, we can all but expect this case to head right to the US Supreme court as pressure from Republican leaders will be colossal. Then again, should Franken lose the ruling, it is obviously expected that Franken will appeal to the United States Supreme Court as, well, he did “win” in the first place.

Either way, thanks to Arlen Specter, both Franken and Coleman’s attorneys should expect to stay very busy for the rest of 2009 and into 2010.

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