The Cost of Norm's Stalling

It is almost May, and Minnesota is still short a senator. Norm Coleman has decided to appeal and take his case further. We are all tired of this. You lost, dude. Move on and quit costing us money, embarrassment, and loss of representation.

I really feel for Amy Klobucher. Her workload must be astronomical. But, a recent study by Esme Murphy of WCCO really put the actual cost to Minnesota residents in perspective. As she says, we are paying for two senators, but only have one. As reported on mnpublius:

"She now calculates that so far, the cost is approaching $1 million, counting since the day Al Franken should have been sworn in:

By my calculation that’s about $8,000 a day that we, as taxpayers, shell out for offices in Washington, D.C. and in Minnesota. (As far as I can tell from the 2,000-plus page report, all senators get about the same amount of money.)

Right now we have not had a senator for 107 days. At $8,000 a day, that’s about $856,000 we, as taxpayers, have funded for a Senate office that doesn’t exist.

Murphy thinks the rebate should come from the Federal government, but maybe Norm Coleman should have to cover a part of the cost, since he has clearly lost but continues to deny us full representation. Since Coleman is taking up so much of our courts’ time, maybe the $1 million could go towards restoring courts’ staffing. It won’t be enough to completely restore service from our beleaguered court system, but every bit helps."

Coleman's stalling (because that's really all it is at this point) has left Klobucher overworked, Franken waiting, and Minnesotans impatient and angry. Even people who voted for him now say he has zero chance of a political future. After this all plays out, he should have to pay something back.