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Impressive unanimity: The historical significance of Coleman v. Franken |
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By Analysis by Edward B. Foley
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July 01, 2009 |
This analysis was published at MinnPost.com.
Now that Norm Coleman has conceded in the aftermath of today's
unanimous Minnesota Supreme Court ruling, the eight-month-long battle
to determine who won last November's election for the state's U.S.
Senate seat is finally over. Even as the concession eclipses the
opinion in political importance—and appropriately so—the opinion will begin its life as one of the most legally significant resolutions of a disputed election in U.S. history.
Its
historical significance lies in the fact that it is the first appellate
court resolution of a major statewide election after Bush v. Gore. The
seven-month dispute over Washington's gubernatorial election of 2004
resulted in a trial court ruling, but it was never appealed. Puerto
Rico's disputed gubernatorial election of the same year did result in a
4-3 decision of the Puerto Rico Supreme Court (as well as a federal
appeals court decision declining to intervene), but that precedent
lacks the direct relevance to future U.S. elections that today's
decision has.
Today's opinion discusses Bush v. Gore and its treatment of that U.S.
Supreme Court decision in the 2000 presidential election is the most
important judicial analysis of that precedent to date. The reason for
its importance is that it analyzes Bush v. Gore in a setting most
comparable to Bush v. Gore itself: a post-election fight over which
candidate won more votes. Citations to Bush v. Gore in other
contexts, like pre-election disputes over how to count provisional
ballots, are merely invocations of that precedent for whatever
analogical force it might have. Coleman v. Franken is a consideration
of Bush v. Gore in a situation where it most closely applies.
The
Minnesota Supreme Court opinion, like the unanimous trial court ruling
it affirms, holds that the Equal Protection principle of Bush v. Gore
is not violated when a state statute provides a clear and specific rule
for local officials to follow in the counting of ballots, even if some
local officials fail to follow that clear rule. As long as the local
officials' failure to follow the clear and specific state rule, even if
deliberate, was not designed to favor one candidate over another (or
otherwise discriminate improperly among classes of citizens), that
failure—while regrettable—is not unconstitutional.
Read the Entire Analysis at MinnPost.com
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