WASHINGTON — Sen. Al Franken will vote to confirm Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, he confirmed today.
Speaking with reporters via phone from Hanoi, Vietnam, Franken confirmed what had been widely expected.
You could almost imagine it as a Saturday Night Live routine. Open with a shot of the U.S. Capitol. A senator is droning on about some horribly boring subject. Cut to Al Franken sitting in the Senate chairman’s seat, gavel in hand. Antics ensue. It could be a funny skit, except that for the past year, Al Franken actually has been spending a lot of time in the Senate chairman’s seat—off the air, avoiding jokes, studying the job of senator and his new colleagues as they take their turns on the floor.
Sen. Al Franken took the opportunity during the confirmation hearings of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan to subtly criticize Republican statements asserting that Thurgood Marshall — the court’s first African American justice and a lawyer instrumental in getting segregation laws overturned — was an activist judge.
Kagan was a clerk for Marshall.
Franken laid out his argument by noting that numerous cases decided by the current Supreme Court would easily be construed as “activist” according to the Republican definition.
Sen. Al Franken will head to Vietnam during Congress’ summer break along with Democratic Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and independent Sen. Bernie Sanders. Franken will also continue on to Laos.
Franken will also visit Laos, where he will likely be working on issues related to the forced repatriation of Hmong refugees. In early June, Franken hosted a community briefing with Ravic Huso, the U.S. Ambassador to Laos, and Minnesota’s Hmong leaders; he promised attendees he would be visiting Laos soon, according to Hmong Times.
U.S. Sen. Al Franken is part of a Senate delegation that will travel to Vietnam next week.
The group will “look into environmental remediation of dioxin and the joint funding of medical services for people with disabilities, and meet with Vietnamese government officials to discuss education initiatives, labor issues and trade relations.”
Far from turning into a “vapid and hollow charade,” to use Elena Kagan’s now-famous condemnation of other Supreme Court confirmation hearings, her own have been impressively substantive. But the most surprising development in the Kagan hearings this week has been the performance of the Senators: Both Democrats and Republicans have articulated clear visions of the law — Democrats say judges should uphold progressive legislation like campaign finance and health care; Republicans say they should strike those regulations down — and have pressed Kagan in sophisticated ways.
My nominee for the best question comes from Senator Al Franken, who, although not a lawyer, has emerged as the leading progressive constitutionalist in the Senate. In his championing of net neutrality and opposition to the Comcast/NBC merger, Franken recognizes that private corporations, like Comcast, now have more power over who can speak than any government, and that the most important threats to free speech in the twenty-first century will come not from government but from the concentration of corporate power. “When the same company owns the programming and runs the pipes that bring us the programming, I think we have a problem,” Franken said to Kagan.
Washington, D.C. – Today (Wednesday, June 30) U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) joined Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to introduce legislation to permanently prevent Asian Carp and other invasive species from entering the Great Lakes.
The Permanent Prevention of Asian Carp Act will require the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct and expedite a study detailing engineering options in order to determine the best way to permanently separate the Mississippi River Basin from Lake Michigan.
St. Paul, Minn. — Democratic Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar took somewhat different approaches to their questioning of U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee Elena Kagan during her confirmation hearing Wednesday.
Klobuchar asked Kagan to talk about how her professional experiences might influence her on the high court, while Franken focused on issues surrounding judicial activism.
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), an alumnus of the NBC show “Saturday Night Live,” criticized the proposed merger of NBC Universal and Comcast during his question-and-answer session today with Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan.
“If the same company that runs the pipes also runs the programming, we have a problem,” he said.
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Sen. Al Franken is headed to Vietnam and Laos next week.
The Minnesota Democrat’s office said Wednesday that Franken will visit Vietnam with three fellow senators and make a side trip to Laos.
In Vietnam, Franken will travel with Sens. Tom Harkin of Iowa, Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.
They plan to meet with government officials and look at efforts to clean up Agent Orange contamination from the Vietnam War. They will also talk about funding for medical services for people with disabilities.
