Reid calls on Coleman to concede

Senate Majority
Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said that while Democrats will not seek to seat
Democrat Al Franken today, Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) should concede the
election.

In his inaugural
address to the 111th Congress, Reid referred to the Minnesota Senate seat as a
Democratic seat and to Coleman as a “former senator” in citing the
state canvassing board’s certification of Franken as the winner. Franken led
Coleman by 225 votes after the canvassing board completed an exhaustive
recount.

{mosads}”This is a
difficult time for former Sen. Coleman and his family, and he is entitled to
the opportunity to concede this election graciously. But we cannot let this
drag on forever,” Reid said. “I hope that former Sen. Coleman and all
of our Republican colleagues will choose to respect the will of the people of
Minnesota.”

Franken’s
“term must begin, and will begin soon,” Reid said on the floor on
Tuesday. “Even close elections have winners, and I can testify to
that.” Reid won reelection against then-Rep. John Ensign (R-Nev.) in 1998
by just 428 votes after Ensign called for a recount.

Coleman has
scheduled a media availability Tuesday at 4 p.m. EST in St. Paul, though his
campaign would not say what topics Coleman will address. Coleman’s campaign has
not ruled out an election contest, though they have yet to file one since the
canvassing board certified the election on Monday. 

The deadline to
contest the election is Jan. 12.

A contest, and
the myriad legal challenges that could follow, could delay the outcome for a
month or more. Democrats have repeatedly claimed that even if all of Coleman’s
challenges break his way, the first-term Republican would not be able to
overcome the gap.

Coleman’s
campaign wanted the canvassing board to review an additional 650 absentee
ballots they say were wrongly rejected, along with a review of 150 ballots they
assert were counted twice and 133 votes in heavily-Democratic Minneapolis that
later went missing.

Franken, for his
part, did not travel to Washington on Tuesday, when the remainder of the
senators who won election in November were sworn in.