It's late afternoon on the West Coast.

On the East Coast, Chuck and 24 come on in 40 minutes. Good night for DVR.

This is an Open Thread.

If Martha Coakley loses the U.S. Senate race in Massacussetts, can she delay the certification of the results and Scott Brown's taking office by asking for a recount? If Scott Brown loses, can he do the same to her?

If that happens, wouldn't the election's result on the health care vote be nil? As far as I can tell (and I am not an elections attorney) the Massachussetts statute provides (ALM GL ch. 54, § 116):[More...]

Personally, I do not see Massachusetts delaying the seating of its new Senator if Tuesday night's result is not disputed, but this GOP argument is ridiculous:

Appointed Senator Paul Kirk will lose his vote in the Senate after Tuesday’s election in Massachusetts of a new senator and cannot be the 60th vote for Democratic health care legislation, according to Republican attorneys. [. . .] {I]n the days after the election, it is Kirk’s status that matters, not Brown’s. Massachusetts law says that an appointed senator remains in office “until election and qualification of the person duly elected to fill the vacancy.” [. . .] [B]ased on Massachusetts law, Senate precedent, and the U.S. Constitution, Republican attorneys said Kirk will no longer be a senator after election day, period. [. . .] “Qualification” does not require state “certification,” the lawyers said.

Of course qualification depends on certification of being the winner of the election. Brown would not be the winner of the election until he is certified as the winner of the election. As I said, I do not expect that there will be a delay in certifying and seating Brown if he is a clear winner Tuesday night, but he does not officially win until the election is certified.

Speaking for me only

D-Day:

Dawn Johnsen’s nomination cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee months ago, and with Arlen Specter’s support her confirmation has been thought to be all but assured. Nevertheless, with the re-nomination process, Republicans will seek additional hearings, a perfect opportunity for them to fearmonger on terrorism.

All but assured if Coakley wins the Massachusetts Senate race. Otherwise, we are back where we started - Republican Dick Lugar supports Johnsen but Nebraska Dem Ben Nelson opposes and will not allow a floor vote on the Johnsen nomination to head the OLC.

Speaking for me only

NYTimes:

President Obama will travel to Massachusetts on Sunday to campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, as worries intensify that the party could lose its 60-seat majority in the Senate and the seat that for decades belonged to Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Unlike Jeralyn, I strongly hope Martha Coakley wins the Senate race in Massachusetts. There simply is no comparison between her and her opponent Scott Brown - Coakley is infinitely superior on the issues I care about.

That said, it is now clear that Coakley may lose. What happens if Coakley loses? What would it mean? One thing for sure - it would mean that the Democratic political message is not working. It's one thing to lose the governorships of Virginia and New Jersey in tough economic times. Like NYC mayors and Presidents, Governors are blamed for everything that happens. And times are tough. But Coakley is not an incumbent. Surely she is not being blamed for current conditions. It seems that Coakley is not a good candidate, but still, Massachusetts? Something is wrong. More . .

At Politico, Radley Balko summarizes Martha Coakley's prosecutorial over-reaching during her career and the threat she poses to those who care about criminal justice reform.

As a member of the Senate, not only would Coakley be creating new federal criminal laws; given her record as a prosecutor, there’s a good chance she’d serve on committees with oversight over the Justice Department and the judiciary. She’d also be casting votes to confirm or deny federal judicial appointments. Advocates for criminal justice reform should be wary. Coakley may share Kennedy’s opposition to the death penalty, but her record as a prosecutor leaves plenty of doubt about her commitment to justice.

I hope if you live in Massachussetts, you don't vote for Martha Coakley. My prior posts on why she should not be Senator are here and here.

Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd is retiring. So is Sen. Byron Dorgan. And Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter.

I think CT's seat is safe with Attorney General Richard Blumenthal the likely Democratic candidate. Colorado will be safe, with numerous candidates that can beat Scott McInnis. Dorgan's seat I haven't followed, so I don't know.

I'd call it more a re-arranging of the deck chairs that ends up keeping the ship afloat than a sign the Dems are capitulating on 2010.

In other words, I'm not worried. What am I missing?

I've never heard of Howard Huntsman, but Newsweek spends four pages on the former Republican Governor of Utah who Obama made Ambassador to China. He's back in DC and apparently contemplating a run for the GOP nomination.

He's a moderate, who believes the GOP needs to attract younger voters by hitting on three issues: immigration, gay rights and the environment.

Like Mitt Romney, he's a Mormon, which ordinarily would prompt concerns about whether they would be competing for the same supporters and donors. Huntsman doesn't have to worry about that.

Huntsman wouldn’t have much trouble financing the first leg of a presidential campaign on his own: his father, whose company invented the “clamshell” container for McDonald’s to package its Big Macs, is a billionaire.

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I'm not happy about this, but here it is. Mass. Attorney General and former state prosecutor Martha Coakley won today's Democratic primary election to replace Sen. Edward Kennedy.

I've never thought Martha Coakley would make a good U.S. Senator. I'm even more convinced now that she has signed her name to a brief restricting death penalty appeals, while claiming to be against the death penalty.

The case, which comes as Coakley is battling for votes in the Democratic Senate primary, involves a convicted murderer from Alabama who has appealed his case to the Supreme Court, on the grounds that his state-assigned lawyer failed to introduce crucial evidence that he is mentally retarded.

“There’s no way this kid should be killed,’’ said Stephen B. Bright, president and senior counsel at the Southern Center for Human Rights, an organization that opposes the death penalty. “It’s old-fashioned Southern states’ rights. I was shocked to see that she and the state of Massachusetts had joined that brief.’’

Coakley-speak:

“This, from our point of view, is unrelated to a death penalty or any of the issues around that,’’ Coakley said. “A real concern was that we get a clear determination from the Supreme Court on what is the standard of review of a federal court looking at a state court decision.’’

How is limiting the appeal rights of a mentally retarded person sentenced to die not about the death penalty? AEDPA, which the brief addresses, is the infamously unfair "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act."[More...]

Maine is now the third state to legalize medical marijuana dispensaries.

In a landmark vote, Maine voters today approved Question 5, making the state the third in the country to license nonprofit organizations to provide medical marijuana to qualified patients and the first ever to do so by a vote of the people.

...Under the measure, the state will license nonprofit organizations to provide medical marijuana to qualified patients and set rules for their operation. While 13 states permit medical use of marijuana, only Rhode Island and New Mexico have similar dispensary provisions, both of which were adopted by the states’ legislatures....Question 5 also expands the list of medical conditions qualifying for protection under Maine’s law to include several conditions that are included in most other medical marijuana states, including intractable pain, agitation of Alzheimer’s disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (“Lou Gehrig’s disease”).

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