Norm Coleman
Encyclopedia
Norman Bertram Coleman, Jr. (born August 17, 1949) is an American
attorney
and politician
. He was a United States senator
from Minnesota
from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th
, 109th
, and 110th Congresses
. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor
of Saint Paul, Minnesota
, from 1994 to 2002. Previously a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
(DFL), Coleman became a Republican
in 1996.
Coleman's 2008 US Senate re-election bid, in which he was challenged by Democrat Al Franken
and former senator Dean Barkley
, was long unresolved. His term ended on January 3, 2009, and after a six-month legal battle in which he lost each of his contests, the Minnesota Supreme Court
unanimously declared Franken the election winner by 312 votes (out of over 3 million cast) on June 30, 2009, prompting Coleman to concede.
As of 2011, Coleman works as an adviser and board director with the Republican Jewish Coalition
.
in Brooklyn
and Hofstra University
on Long Island
. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, attended high school with Coleman; Vermont
Senator Bernie Sanders
and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
are both graduates of the same high school.
During his time at college, Coleman was an active member of the 1960s counterculture
and a liberal Democrat
. "Carting a bullhorn around campus, he'd regularly lecture students about the immorality of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War
." He successfully ran for president of the student senate during his junior year. Under Coleman, the senate refused to ratify the newspaper's editor and her co-editor and cut some funding to the newspaper. But after refusing to swear in the editor on four different occasions, the senate finally backed down. He allegedly smoked marijuana, and he celebrated his 20th birthday at the Woodstock Festival
. He worked as a roadie for Jethro Tull
and Ten Years After
, amongst others.
He is Chairman of the American Action Network
, a center right 501 (c)(4) whose mission is to broaden the appeal and reach of center-right ideas. He is also a senior government advisor to Hogans Lovell
, a prominent national law firm .
from 1972 until 1974 but later received his Juris Doctor
from the University of Iowa College of Law
in 1976. Coleman then joined the office of the Minnesota Attorney General as a prosecutor, eventually rising to chief prosecutor and then solicitor general. Coleman left the Attorney General's office upon being elected the mayor of St. Paul.
Coleman married actress Laurie Coleman (née Casserly) in 1981. They have two children, Jacob and Sarah. Two other children died during infancy (Adam, 1983; Grace, 1992) from a rare genetic disorder
known as Zellweger syndrome
.
Coleman is a member of the Freemason fraternity, having been made a Mason at sight in 2003 by then Grand Master of Masons in Minnesota, Neil Neddermeyer.
, a typically reversible condition.
won the DFL endorsement. In 1996, he joined the Republican Party and was reelected in 1997 as a Republican, beating DFL nominee State Senator Sandy Pappas.
Norm Coleman's best-known, accomplishment as mayor of Saint Paul was bringing professional hockey
back to Minnesota. In 1993, the Minnesota North Stars
moved to Dallas, Texas
. The loss of their National Hockey League
franchise was particularly tough on local sports fans since many felt that Minnesota was the hockey capital of the United States. Coleman played to these feelings as well as the sibling rivalry
between Saint Paul and Minneapolis in his efforts. Several attempts to lure existing NHL teams to play at
the Civic Center Arena with corporate welfare failed. On June 7, 1997 the NHL awarded Saint Paul an expansion franchise, later named the Minnesota Wild
, that would play a new arena in downtown at the site of Civic Center Arena. The new arena, later named the Xcel Energy Center
, was built with $65 million from state taxpayers and $30 million from the city of Saint Paul.
After succeeding in bringing professional hockey to Saint Paul, Coleman also attempted to bring Major League Baseball
, making several attempts to get the Minnesota Twins
to move from Minneapolis. The closest these attempts came to success was in 1999 when Saint Paul voters rejected a referendum that would have authorized a 0.5% sales tax in the city to pay for a stadium in downtown Saint Paul. In 2006 plans were finalized to build the Twins a new stadium, later named Target Field
, in downtown Minneapolis.
Coleman's lobbying for the hockey team and arena raised his profile around the state and made him contacts that would help him in his later runs for statewide office. In 1998 he lost a bid for governor of Minnesota to former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura
, a member of the Reform Party of Minnesota; the DFL candidate was Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III
.
and George W. Bush
to run against incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone
in that year's Senate election
. The White House was determined to unseat Wellstone, and felt Coleman, with his popularity in heavily Democratic St. Paul, offered the best chance of doing so. Coleman easily won the Republican nomination.
Coleman and Wellstone were neck-and-neck in most polls for most of the campaign. Wellstone died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. The Democrats named former Vice President
Walter Mondale
to replace Wellstone on the ballot. Mondale had held the same Senate seat from 1964 to 1977. Coleman narrowly defeated Mondale in the election, winning by just over 61,000 votes out of over 2 million statewide. Coleman succeeded Dean Barkley
, who had been appointed by Ventura to serve the remaining two months of Wellstone's term.
In April 2003, Coleman told a Capitol Hill reporter that he was a "99% improvement" over Wellstone because he had a better working relationship with the White House
. Many Wellstone supporters found this offensive and insulting, and at least one member of Congress urged Coleman to apologize. In 2004 Coleman campaigned for the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee
(NRSC), but was narrowly defeated for the post by North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole
in a 28-27 vote.
.
and was actively involved in the anti-war movement of the early 1970s. He once was suspended for leading a sit-in
protest. He ran for student senate and opined in the school newspaper that his fellow students should vote for him because he knew that, "These conservative kids don't fuck or get high like we do (purity, you know)... Already the cries of motherhood, apple pie, and Jim Buckley
reverberate through the halls of the Student Center. Everyone watch out, the 1950s bobby-sox generation is about to take over."
While running for mayor in 1993, Coleman wrote in a letter to the City Convention Delegates: "I have never sought any other political office. I have no other ambition other than to be mayor." He goes on in the same letter to say:
In December 1996, Coleman announced he was leaving the DFL party to join the Republican Party. He cited his frustrations with the Democratic Party and his belief that the Republican Party offered the best chance to continue his efforts to hold the line on taxes and grow jobs.
Many in Minnesota speculated that his switch was motivated by his known aspirations for statewide office. As an abortion opponent and a frequent adversary of public employee unions, Coleman's positions put him at odds with the DFL Party leadership in Minnesota. In a letter to supporters announcing the switch, Coleman wrote that “while the political party I belong to changes, nothing about how I govern or what I believe changes at all.” He was re-elected as St. Paul Mayor in 1997, with nearly 60% of the vote.
Prior to becoming a Republican and running against him in 2002, Coleman had chaired Wellstone's
Senate re-election campaign in 1996. While making the Wellstone nomination speech at the 1996 state DFL convention, Coleman stated: "Paul Wellstone is a Democrat, and I am a Democrat." At this point in time, tensions were so high between Coleman and the DFL party that a number of delegates at the convention were loudly booing Coleman's speech.
Coleman was a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership
. In March 2007, National Journal
ranked Coleman the fourth most liberal Republican in the Senate. GovTrack
, an independent tracking website, also describes Coleman as a "moderate Republican" based on their own bill analysis.
In September 2008, Coleman joined the bipartisan Gang of 20, which was seeking a bipartisan solution to the American energy crisis. The group pushed for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.
He received a 14% progressive
rating from Progressive Punch And he scored a 73% conservative
rating by the conservative group, SBE Council. In contrast, Minnesota's other senator at the time, Democrat Mark Dayton
, received a score of 90% progressive and 9% conservative by the same groups.
of MinnPost.com
, "He believes the prospects are good for a drawdown of U.S. troops, but it must be done based on conditions on the ground as reported by commanders in the field, not according to an "arbitrary" timetable set for "political" reasons in Washington."
for illegal aliens
".
on, thus advancing, a defense appropriations bill that included oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
(ANWR) after having pledged in 2002 to oppose such drilling. He stated that he did so because although he planned to vote against the bill, he did not believe that a filibuster was warranted. In spite of this, many environmental advocacy groups (most notably the Sierra Club)
viewed his vote as a betrayal of his promise. His vote notwithstanding, the filibuster held, and Coleman voted to strip the ANWR provision from the bill in a subsequent vote. Sen. Coleman received a score of 33% for 2007 from the League of Conservation Voters, in their view taking the pro-environment position in just five of fourteen cases.
candidate since at least 1993. Coleman attributes his position on abortion to the death of two of his four children in infancy from a rare genetic disease. He supports limiting stem cell research to adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood, and, in July 2006, he voted against lifting restrictions on federal research dollars for new embryonic stem cell
lines
. Senator Coleman is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership
a group which supports Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Senator Coleman voted in favor of legislative intervention to prolong the life of severely brain-damaged Floridian Terri Schiavo
.
s by either the federal or state governments. In his 2002 Senate campaign, Coleman pledged support for an amendment to the United States Constitution
that would ban any state from issuing marriage licenses to people of the same sex. In 2004 and in June 2006, he voted in favor of such an amendment.
When he was mayor, Coleman refused to sign a city proclamation celebrating the annual gay pride
festival, explaining his opposition: "What we have had in St. Paul and Minneapolis for many years is signing a joint proclamation making it gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender month. I will say that I support human rights... And of course that includes sexual orientation. On the other hand, I've felt very strongly that it wasn't government's responsibility to give proclamations for people's sexuality. I don't think government has a responsibility to issue awards for one's sexuality."
Coleman hired Susan Kimberly, a transwoman to be his deputy mayor in 1998. Kimberly also worked as state legislative director in Coleman's Minnesota Senate office.
.
In December 2005, Coleman voted for a budget bill that cut funding from a number of programs, but kept funding for sugar beet farmers in Minnesota after Rove asked him to support the administration's position on the issue. Coleman told Congress Daily that he would not vote for a bill that cut sugar beet funding but "Karl Rove called me and asked what I wanted. A few hours later it was out of the bill."
On March 14, 2006, Coleman called on President Bush to replace or reorganize his staff, stating that they did not sufficiently have their "ears to the ground" on matters like Hurricane Katrina
, Harriet Miers
' failed Supreme Court
nomination, and the Dubai Ports World controversy
and accusing the administration of having a "tin ear." He stated that they showed inadequate "political sensitivity" in their handling of the issues.
On January 22, 2007, Coleman, along with fellow Republican Senators John Warner
and Susan Collins
, joined Democrats in opposition to President Bush's planned troop increase in Iraq
.
Coleman expressed reservations about supporting DR-CAFTA (Dominican Republic – Central America Free Trade Agreement) unless the interests of the domestic U.S. sugar
industry (including Minnesota's sugar beet
industry) were accommodated. He voted in favor of DR-CAFTA after obtaining quotas imposed on foreign sugar until 2008. He stood behind President Bush on August 2, 2005, as the trade agreement was signed into law. "This is a 3 year insurance policy that I have purchased for my sugar farmers..." he said.
contributions to the creation of individual accounts to be invested in the stock market, a variation of a general plan referred to by supporters as "personal accounts," referred to historically as "privatization."
He agreed with President Bush's statements that the contribution changes would apply to those younger than 55. "The Social Security system for those folks 55 and over will not change in any way, shape or form — no ifs, ands, or buts," he said.
's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These Oil-for-Food Program Hearings
covered corporations (including Bayoil) and several well-known political figures of various nations (including Vladimir Zhironovsky), but are much remembered for the confrontational appearance of British Member of Parliament
George Galloway
, a member of the RESPECT The Unity Coalition
(Respect), a then-new British political party. Coleman accused Galloway of abuses, which Galloway forcefully denied.
The previous year, Coleman had called for the UN's Secretary-general
Kofi Annan
to resign for other alleged program abuses. On June 2, 2006, Coleman responded to criticism that he had insufficiently investigated the Australian Wheat Board
(AWB) for sanctions busting, saying that there were legal and cost hurdles. The Prime Minister of Australia at the time, John Howard
, was a supporter of the invasion of Iraq. The Australian ambassador to the U.S., Michael Thawley, met with Coleman in late 2004 to lobby against any investigation of AWB.
of which Coleman was a member, during testimony of former Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) director Michael D. Brown
, Coleman attacked Brown for poor leadership during Hurricane Katrina disaster relief
efforts, "you didn't provide the leadership, even with structural infirmities." Coleman went on, "you're not prepared to kind of put a mirror in front of your face and recognize your own inadequacies" and "the record reflects that you didn't get it or you didn't in writing or in some way make commands that would move people to do what has to be done until way after it should have been done." Brown responded combatively, "well, Senator, that's very easy for you to say sitting behind that dais and not being there in the middle of that disaster, watching that human suffering and watching those people dying and trying to deal with those structural dysfunctionalities" and implored Coleman to stick to questions. He later likened Coleman's charges to a "drive-by shooting." Brown had recently stated that he notified Department of Homeland Security and the White House of the tremendous scale of Katrina flooding earlier than had been previously reported.
On March 14, 2006, Coleman introduced a bill that would ban foreign companies from operating ports in the United States. (S.2410, 3/14/2006: A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to limit foreign control of investments in certain United States critical infrastructure).
In March 2007, Coleman introduced legislation (S. 754) to kill the Defense Travel System, a program intended to automate the purchasing of travel services by the U.S. Department of Defense, which accounts for more than half of the federal government's total outlays of around $11 billion annually for travel, including transportation, lodging, and rental cars. Shortly after he filed the legislation, Coleman received a generous contribution from the CEO of Carlson Companies
, which owns Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a business travel management firm whose CW Government Travel unit provides travel management services for some federal agencies. The Carlson Companies is based in Minnesota
. Over the years, Coleman has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from people connected with Carlson Companies.
Coleman responded with a campaign ad in which he denied the allegations and blamed them on his opponent in the 2008 senate race, Democrat Al Franken.
Coleman's most recent Senate financial disclosure form discloses that Laurie Coleman gets a salary from Hays Companies, but Senate rules do not require the salary amount to be revealed.
In June of 2011, Coleman and Kazeminy were vindicated when former FBI Director Louis Freeh announced that the investigation against them had been closed.
Freeh, an attorney for Kazeminy, and a former FBI Director in the Clinton Administration said he learned the Justice Department had ended the investigation in a February 24th meeting with Andrew Levchuk of the department's Public Integrity Section in Washington.
Freeh was hired by Kazeminy to conduct a thorough, independent investigation of all charges, and concluded that there was no wrong doing or impropriety one behalf of the Colemans or Kazeminy. Freeh said both his investigation, and a separate Deep Marine board investigation, concluded McKim made false claims in an attempt to force a larger severance package out of Deep Marine.
McKim’s allegations were repeated hundreds of times in local and national media reports during the waning days of the 2008 election. According to Coleman, millions were spent to them “into multi million dollar attacks against my family and Nasser Kazeminy”.
Freeh says McKim later prepared an affidavit that would have recanted his allegations against the Coleman’s and Kazeminy in exchange for a financial settlement. He concluded that McKim had a clear motive to use false allegations as leverage to enrich himself. McKim still questions the legitimacy of insurance payments and says he has done nothing wrong , but another attorney for Kazeminy says his client has not ruled out future litigation against McKim.
Political observers now suggest it is possible that the allegations against Coleman may have handed victory to Al Franken, who ended up winning the seat by a razor-thin margin of a few hundred votes after a contentious recount process.
and the DFL
nominee, former Air America host and comedian Al Franken
. On the day after the election, Coleman led in votes and claimed victory in the race. But Minnesota law requires an automatic recount when the margin between the leading candidates is less than 0.5% of the vote, and the margin between Coleman and Franken was about 0.01%. Barkley came in third with 15%.
The initial results of the recount put Franken ahead by 225 votes, out of almost 2.9 million votes cast. On December 24, 2008, after losing a unanimous decision at the hands of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Coleman's lawyers stated that it was now a "virtual certainty" that Coleman would contest the results of the election.
Coleman's term officially expired on January 3, 2009.
On January 5, Franken was certified as the winner of the recount by 225 votes. Coleman filed a legal challenge of the results on January 6, and a three-judge panel was seated.
On February 3, the panel allowed Coleman to introduce evidence that as many as 4,800 absentee ballots were wrongly rejected and should now be counted. The Franken campaign had tried to limit Coleman to bringing evidence on only the 650 absentee ballots cited in the initial court filing.
On April 1, the panel ordered that an additional 400 absentee ballots be examined. After examining the 400 ballots on April 6, the panel ordered that an additional 351 ballots be opened and counted. On April 7, the additional 351 ballots were opened and counted before the panel and a packed courtroom. Franken got an additional 198 votes, Coleman gained 111 votes, and other candidates received 42, increasing Franken's lead to 312 votes.
On April 13, the three-judge panel issued its final ruling, sweeping aside all of Coleman's legal claims and declaring Franken the winner of the race by 312 votes. In its unanimous decision, the panel said, "The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the November 4, 2008 election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately", and said that Franken should be issued a Certificate of Election. The panel ruled that Coleman failed to prove that mistakes or irregularities in the treatment of absentee ballots would have altered the outcome of the election.
Coleman appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on June 1. On June 30, the court unanimously ruled in Franken's favor, declaring him the winner of the election, prompting Coleman's concession.
announced that he would not seek re-election in 2010 it was widely anticipated that Coleman would run for Governor. Early polls showed him the favorite among Republicans and polling the strongest among all potential Republican candidates.
However Coleman announced on January 17 that he would not run for Governor in 2010 saying,
"I love Minnesota and I love public service, but this is not the right time for me and my family to conduct a campaign for Governor.
"Timing is everything. The timing on this race is both a bit too soon and a bit too late. It is too soon after my last race and too late to do a proper job of seeking the support of delegates who will decide in which direction our party should go. The commitments I have to my family and the work I am currently engaged in do not allow me to now go forward."
Coleman was rumored to be a possible candidate for the Republican National Committee's Chairmanship. He emphasized, however, that he would not run against Michael Steele should he seek re-election. When Steele announced his candidacy for re-election, Coleman stated that he would not be a candidate.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and politician
Politician
A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...
. He was a United States senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
from 2003 to 2009. Coleman was elected in 2002 and served in the 108th
108th United States Congress
The One Hundred Eighth United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States federal government, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives from January 3, 2003 to January 3, 2005, during the third and fourth years of George W. Bush's...
, 109th
109th United States Congress
The One Hundred Ninth United States Congress was the legislative branch of the United States, composed of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, from January 3, 2005 to January 3, 2007, during the fifth and sixth years of George W. Bush's presidency. House members...
, and 110th Congresses
110th United States Congress
The One Hundred Tenth United States Congress was the meeting of the legislative branch of the United States federal government, between January 3, 2007, and January 3, 2009, during the last two years of the second term of President George W. Bush. It was composed of the Senate and the House of...
. Before becoming a senator, he was mayor
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
of Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul, Minnesota
Saint Paul is the capital and second-most populous city of the U.S. state of Minnesota. The city lies mostly on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the area surrounding its point of confluence with the Minnesota River, and adjoins Minneapolis, the state's largest city...
, from 1994 to 2002. Previously a member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is a major political party in the state of Minnesota and the state affiliate of the Democratic Party. It was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party...
(DFL), Coleman became a Republican
Republican Party of Minnesota
The Republican Party of Minnesota is the Minnesota branch of the United States Republican Party. Elected by the party’s state central committee in June 2009, its chairman is Tony Sutton, and its deputy-chairman is Michael Brodkorb.-Early history:...
in 1996.
Coleman's 2008 US Senate re-election bid, in which he was challenged by Democrat Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....
and former senator Dean Barkley
Dean Barkley
Dean Malcolm Barkley is a politician who briefly served as a member of the United States Senate from Minnesota following the death of Paul Wellstone...
, was long unresolved. His term ended on January 3, 2009, and after a six-month legal battle in which he lost each of his contests, the Minnesota Supreme Court
Minnesota Supreme Court
The Minnesota Supreme Court is the highest court in the U.S. state of Minnesota and consists of seven members. The court was first assembled as a three-judge panel in 1849 when Minnesota was still a territory. The first members were lawyers from outside of the region who were appointed by...
unanimously declared Franken the election winner by 312 votes (out of over 3 million cast) on June 30, 2009, prompting Coleman to concede.
As of 2011, Coleman works as an adviser and board director with the Republican Jewish Coalition
Republican Jewish Coalition
The Republican Jewish Coalition , founded in 1985, is a political lobbying group in the United States that promotes Jewish Republicans. The RJC claims that it is the most important voice on conservative political issues for the Jewish-American community...
.
Early life
Coleman was born in New York to Beverly and Norman Bertram Coleman, Sr. He was a graduate of James Madison High SchoolJames Madison High School (New York)
James Madison High School is a public high school located at 3787 Bedford Avenue, in the Madison section of Brooklyn, New York, and educates grades 9 through 12. It is part of Region 6 in the New York City Department of Education...
in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
and Hofstra University
Hofstra University
Hofstra University is a private, nonsectarian institution of higher learning located in the Village of Hempstead, New York, United States, about east of New York City: less than an hour away by train or car...
on Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. New York Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, attended high school with Coleman; Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
Senator Bernie Sanders
Bernie Sanders
Bernard "Bernie" Sanders is the junior United States Senator from Vermont. He previously represented Vermont's at-large district in the United States House of Representatives...
and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by President Bill Clinton and took the oath of office on August 10, 1993. She is the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice.She is generally viewed as belonging to...
are both graduates of the same high school.
During his time at college, Coleman was an active member of the 1960s counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
and a liberal Democrat
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
. "Carting a bullhorn around campus, he'd regularly lecture students about the immorality of the Nixon administration and the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
." He successfully ran for president of the student senate during his junior year. Under Coleman, the senate refused to ratify the newspaper's editor and her co-editor and cut some funding to the newspaper. But after refusing to swear in the editor on four different occasions, the senate finally backed down. He allegedly smoked marijuana, and he celebrated his 20th birthday at the Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
. He worked as a roadie for Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
and Ten Years After
Ten Years After
Ten Years After is an English blues-rock band, most popular in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Between 1968 and 1973, Ten Years After scored eight Top 40 albums on the UK Albums Chart...
, amongst others.
He is Chairman of the American Action Network
American Action Network
American Action Network is a 501 issue advocacy organization that focuses on promoting what it styles as “center-right policies.” It was established in February 2010 by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former adviser to the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, and former Republican Senator from...
, a center right 501 (c)(4) whose mission is to broaden the appeal and reach of center-right ideas. He is also a senior government advisor to Hogans Lovell
Hogan Lovells
Hogan Lovells is an international law firm co-headquartered in London, United Kingdom and Washington, D.C., United States. It was formed on May 1, 2010 following the merger of Washington-based Hogan & Hartson and London-based Lovells. The two firms' agreement to merge was announced on 15 December...
, a prominent national law firm .
Legal career
Coleman attended Brooklyn Law SchoolBrooklyn Law School
Brooklyn Law School is a law school located in Brooklyn Heights, in Downtown Brooklyn, New York.-History:Founded in 1901 by William Payson Richardson and Norman P. Heffley, Brooklyn Law School was the first law school on Long Island. Using space provided by Heffley’s business school, the law...
from 1972 until 1974 but later received his Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor
Juris Doctor is a professional doctorate and first professional graduate degree in law.The degree was first awarded by Harvard University in the United States in the late 19th century and was created as a modern version of the old European doctor of law degree Juris Doctor (see etymology and...
from the University of Iowa College of Law
University of Iowa College of Law
The University of Iowa College of Law is one of the eleven professional graduate schools at the University of Iowa, located in Iowa City, Iowa. Founded in 1865, it is the oldest law school in continuous operation west of the Mississippi River. The law school was ranked as the 27th best law school...
in 1976. Coleman then joined the office of the Minnesota Attorney General as a prosecutor, eventually rising to chief prosecutor and then solicitor general. Coleman left the Attorney General's office upon being elected the mayor of St. Paul.
Personal life
Genetic disorder
A genetic disorder is an illness caused by abnormalities in genes or chromosomes, especially a condition that is present from before birth. Most genetic disorders are quite rare and affect one person in every several thousands or millions....
known as Zellweger syndrome
Zellweger syndrome
Zellweger syndrome, also called cerebrohepatorenal syndrome is a rare, congenital disorder, characterized by the reduction or absence of functional peroxisomes in the cells of an individual. It is one of a family of disorders called leukodystrophies...
.
Coleman is a member of the Freemason fraternity, having been made a Mason at sight in 2003 by then Grand Master of Masons in Minnesota, Neil Neddermeyer.
Health
On September 11, 2009, Coleman announced he had been diagnosed with Bell's PalsyBell's palsy
Bell's palsy is a form of facial paralysis resulting from a dysfunction of the cranial nerve VII that results in the inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause facial paralysis, e.g., brain tumor, stroke, and Lyme disease. However, if no specific cause...
, a typically reversible condition.
Mayor of Saint Paul
In 1993, Coleman was elected mayor of St. Paul as a Democrat. Coleman had also run for mayor in 1989, but dropped out when Jim ScheibelJames Scheibel
James Scheibel is an American politician who was endorsed by the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. From 1990 to 1994, he served as the mayor of Saint Paul, Minnesota, succeeding George Latimer....
won the DFL endorsement. In 1996, he joined the Republican Party and was reelected in 1997 as a Republican, beating DFL nominee State Senator Sandy Pappas.
Norm Coleman's best-known, accomplishment as mayor of Saint Paul was bringing professional hockey
Ice hockey
Ice hockey, often referred to as hockey, is a team sport played on ice, in which skaters use wooden or composite sticks to shoot a hard rubber puck into their opponent's net. The game is played between two teams of six players each. Five members of each team skate up and down the ice trying to take...
back to Minnesota. In 1993, the Minnesota North Stars
Minnesota North Stars
The Minnesota North Stars were a professional ice hockey team in the National Hockey League for 26 seasons, from 1967 to 1993. The North Stars played their home games at the Met Center in Bloomington, and the team's colors for most of its history were green, yellow, gold and white...
moved to Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
. The loss of their National Hockey League
National Hockey League
The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States...
franchise was particularly tough on local sports fans since many felt that Minnesota was the hockey capital of the United States. Coleman played to these feelings as well as the sibling rivalry
Sibling rivalry
Sibling rivalry is a type of competition or animosity among children, blood-related or not.Siblings generally spend more time together during childhood than they do with parents. The sibling bond is often complicated and is influenced by factors such as parental treatment, birth order, personality,...
between Saint Paul and Minneapolis in his efforts. Several attempts to lure existing NHL teams to play at
the Civic Center Arena with corporate welfare failed. On June 7, 1997 the NHL awarded Saint Paul an expansion franchise, later named the Minnesota Wild
Minnesota Wild
The Minnesota Wild are a professional ice hockey team based in St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. They are members of the Northwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League ....
, that would play a new arena in downtown at the site of Civic Center Arena. The new arena, later named the Xcel Energy Center
Xcel Energy Center
The Xcel Energy Center is a multi-purpose arena located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It is named for its locally-based corporate sponsor Xcel Energy. With an official capacity of 18,064, the arena has four spectator levels: one suite level and three general seating levels. The arena is owned by the...
, was built with $65 million from state taxpayers and $30 million from the city of Saint Paul.
After succeeding in bringing professional hockey to Saint Paul, Coleman also attempted to bring Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...
, making several attempts to get the Minnesota Twins
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They play in the Central Division of Major League Baseball's American League. The team is named after the Twin Cities area of Minneapolis and St. Paul. They played in Metropolitan Stadium from 1961 to 1981 and the...
to move from Minneapolis. The closest these attempts came to success was in 1999 when Saint Paul voters rejected a referendum that would have authorized a 0.5% sales tax in the city to pay for a stadium in downtown Saint Paul. In 2006 plans were finalized to build the Twins a new stadium, later named Target Field
Target Field
Target Field is a baseball park located in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is the home ballpark of the Minnesota Twins, the city's Major League Baseball franchise. It is the franchise's sixth ballpark and third in Minnesota. The Twins moved to Target Field for the 2010 Major League Baseball...
, in downtown Minneapolis.
Coleman's lobbying for the hockey team and arena raised his profile around the state and made him contacts that would help him in his later runs for statewide office. In 1998 he lost a bid for governor of Minnesota to former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura
Jesse Ventura
James George Janos , better known as Jesse Ventura, is an American politician, the 38th Governor of Minnesota from 1999 to 2003, Navy UDT veteran, former SEAL reservist, actor, and former radio and television talk show host...
, a member of the Reform Party of Minnesota; the DFL candidate was Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III
Skip Humphrey
Hubert Horatio "Skip" Humphrey III is a former Minnesota politician who served as attorney general of the state from 1983 to 1999. Prior to that, he was a state senator from 1973 to 1983...
.
U.S. Senate
Coleman had made plans for a second run for governor in 2002, but was persuaded by Karl RoveKarl Rove
Karl Christian Rove was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff to former President George W. Bush until Rove's resignation on August 31, 2007. He has headed the Office of Political Affairs, the Office of Public Liaison, and the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives...
and George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
to run against incumbent Senator Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...
in that year's Senate election
United States Senate elections, 2002
The 2002 United States Senate election featured a series of fiercely contested elections that resulted in a victory for the Republican Party, which gained two seats and thus a narrow majority from the Democratic Party in the United States Senate. Senators who were elected in 1996, known as Senate...
. The White House was determined to unseat Wellstone, and felt Coleman, with his popularity in heavily Democratic St. Paul, offered the best chance of doing so. Coleman easily won the Republican nomination.
Coleman and Wellstone were neck-and-neck in most polls for most of the campaign. Wellstone died in a plane crash on October 25, 2002. The Democrats named former Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
to replace Wellstone on the ballot. Mondale had held the same Senate seat from 1964 to 1977. Coleman narrowly defeated Mondale in the election, winning by just over 61,000 votes out of over 2 million statewide. Coleman succeeded Dean Barkley
Dean Barkley
Dean Malcolm Barkley is a politician who briefly served as a member of the United States Senate from Minnesota following the death of Paul Wellstone...
, who had been appointed by Ventura to serve the remaining two months of Wellstone's term.
In April 2003, Coleman told a Capitol Hill reporter that he was a "99% improvement" over Wellstone because he had a better working relationship with the White House
White House
The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., the house was designed by Irish-born James Hoban, and built between 1792 and 1800 of white-painted Aquia sandstone in the Neoclassical...
. Many Wellstone supporters found this offensive and insulting, and at least one member of Congress urged Coleman to apologize. In 2004 Coleman campaigned for the chairmanship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee
National Republican Senatorial Committee
The National Republican Senatorial Committee is the Republican Hill committee for the United States Senate, working to elect Republicans to that body. The NRSC was founded in 1916 as the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee...
(NRSC), but was narrowly defeated for the post by North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole
Elizabeth Dole
Mary Elizabeth Alexander Hanford "Liddy" Dole is an American politician who served in both the Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush presidential administrations, as well as a United States Senator....
in a 28-27 vote.
.
Political positions
Coleman's politics have changed dramatically throughout his political career. In college, Coleman was a liberal DemocratDemocratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
and was actively involved in the anti-war movement of the early 1970s. He once was suspended for leading a sit-in
Sit-in
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...
protest. He ran for student senate and opined in the school newspaper that his fellow students should vote for him because he knew that, "These conservative kids don't fuck or get high like we do (purity, you know)... Already the cries of motherhood, apple pie, and Jim Buckley
James L. Buckley
James Lane Buckley is a retired judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and previously served as a United States Senator from the state of New York as a member of the Conservative Party of New York from January 3, 1971 to January 3, 1977...
reverberate through the halls of the Student Center. Everyone watch out, the 1950s bobby-sox generation is about to take over."
While running for mayor in 1993, Coleman wrote in a letter to the City Convention Delegates: "I have never sought any other political office. I have no other ambition other than to be mayor." He goes on in the same letter to say:
I am a lifelong Democrat. Some accuse me of being the fiscal conservativeFiscal conservatismFiscal conservatism is a political term used to describe a fiscal policy that advocates avoiding deficit spending. Fiscal conservatives often consider reduction of overall government spending and national debt as well as ensuring balanced budget of paramount importance...
in this race — I plead guilty! I'm not afraid to be tight with your tax dollars. Yet, my fiscal conservatism does not mean I am any less progressiveProgressivismProgressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
in my Democratic ideals. From Bobby Kennedy to George McGovernGeorge McGovernGeorge Stanley McGovern is an historian, author, and former U.S. Representative, U.S. Senator, and the Democratic Party nominee in the 1972 presidential election....
to Warren SpannausWarren SpannausWarren R. Spannaus is an American politician from the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and former Attorney General of Minnesota. Spannaus graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1963. He was elected attorney general in 1970 and assumed office on January 4, 1971...
to Hubert HumphreyHubert HumphreyHubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
to Walter MondaleWalter MondaleWalter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
— my commitment to the great values of our party has remained solid.
In December 1996, Coleman announced he was leaving the DFL party to join the Republican Party. He cited his frustrations with the Democratic Party and his belief that the Republican Party offered the best chance to continue his efforts to hold the line on taxes and grow jobs.
Many in Minnesota speculated that his switch was motivated by his known aspirations for statewide office. As an abortion opponent and a frequent adversary of public employee unions, Coleman's positions put him at odds with the DFL Party leadership in Minnesota. In a letter to supporters announcing the switch, Coleman wrote that “while the political party I belong to changes, nothing about how I govern or what I believe changes at all.” He was re-elected as St. Paul Mayor in 1997, with nearly 60% of the vote.
Prior to becoming a Republican and running against him in 2002, Coleman had chaired Wellstone's
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...
Senate re-election campaign in 1996. While making the Wellstone nomination speech at the 1996 state DFL convention, Coleman stated: "Paul Wellstone is a Democrat, and I am a Democrat." At this point in time, tensions were so high between Coleman and the DFL party that a number of delegates at the convention were loudly booing Coleman's speech.
Coleman was a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership
Republican Main Street Partnership
The Republican Main Street Partnership is a group of moderate members of the United States Republican Party. They tend away from the dominant social conservatism of many Republicans and towards a moderate fiscal conservatism and limited government to a degree. The group is the rough equivalent of...
. In March 2007, National Journal
National Journal
National Journal is a nonpartisan American weekly magazine that reports on the current political environment and emerging political and policy trends. National Journal was first published in 1969. Times Mirror owned the magazine from 1986 to 1997, when it was purchased by David G. Bradley...
ranked Coleman the fourth most liberal Republican in the Senate. GovTrack
GovTrack
GovTrack.us is a website developed by then-student Joshua Tauberer who launched it as a hobby. It enables its users to track the bills and members of the United States Congress. Users can add trackers to certain bills. The website collects data on Congress members, allowing the users to check...
, an independent tracking website, also describes Coleman as a "moderate Republican" based on their own bill analysis.
In September 2008, Coleman joined the bipartisan Gang of 20, which was seeking a bipartisan solution to the American energy crisis. The group pushed for a bill that would encourage state-by-state decisions on offshore drilling and authorize billions of dollars for conservation and alternative energy.
He received a 14% progressive
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
rating from Progressive Punch And he scored a 73% conservative
Conservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
rating by the conservative group, SBE Council. In contrast, Minnesota's other senator at the time, Democrat Mark Dayton
Mark Dayton
Mark Brandt Dayton is an American politician, the 40th and current Governor of the state of Minnesota. Dayton previously served as United States Senator from Minnesota from 2001 to 2007 in the 107th, 108th, and 109th Congresses...
, received a score of 90% progressive and 9% conservative by the same groups.
Iraq
From the start, Coleman was a strong supporter of the war in Iraq and the War on Terror. He has been a consistent supporter of the war over the past several years, and generally tended to agree with the positions of the Bush Administration on Iraq. He is in favor of the eventual removal of U.S. troops from Iraq, but does not believe in any kind of timetable for the removal of troops until the situation in Iraq becomes more stable. According to Eric BlackEric Black (Writer)
Eric Black is an American journalist. He was a long time reporter for the Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper, and has also been a well-known Twin Cities blogger for some time...
of MinnPost.com
MinnPost.com
MinnPost.com also known as MinnPost is a non-profit news website in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with a focus on Minnesota news. Its mission is "to provide high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota."...
, "He believes the prospects are good for a drawdown of U.S. troops, but it must be done based on conditions on the ground as reported by commanders in the field, not according to an "arbitrary" timetable set for "political" reasons in Washington."
Immigration Reform
Coleman was a strong supporter of President Bush's attempts in 2006 and 2007 to pass comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. Senate, one of the few Republicans to do so despite the insistence of many in the GOP that it was "amnestyAmnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
for illegal aliens
Illegal Aliens
Illegal Aliens is a 2007 film starring Anna Nicole Smith and Joanie Laurer. This comedy/science-fiction film is made in the mold of classic 1980s B-movies. Hitting stores on May 1, 2007, the release of the movie was pushed back following the death of Smith in February 2007 and it is her final film...
".
Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, environment
On December 11, 2005, Coleman voted in favor of invoking clotureCloture
In parliamentary procedure, cloture is a motion or process aimed at bringing debate to a quick end. It is also called closure or, informally, a guillotine. The cloture procedure originated in the French National Assembly, from which the name is taken. Clôture is French for "ending" or "conclusion"...
on, thus advancing, a defense appropriations bill that included oil exploration in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a national wildlife refuge in northeastern Alaska, United States. It consists of in the Alaska North Slope region. It is the largest National Wildlife Refuge in the country, slightly larger than the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge...
(ANWR) after having pledged in 2002 to oppose such drilling. He stated that he did so because although he planned to vote against the bill, he did not believe that a filibuster was warranted. In spite of this, many environmental advocacy groups (most notably the Sierra Club)
viewed his vote as a betrayal of his promise. His vote notwithstanding, the filibuster held, and Coleman voted to strip the ANWR provision from the bill in a subsequent vote. Sen. Coleman received a score of 33% for 2007 from the League of Conservation Voters, in their view taking the pro-environment position in just five of fourteen cases.
Abortion, stem-cell research, and Schiavo case
Coleman has campaigned as a pro-lifePro-life
Opposition to the legalization of abortion is centered around the pro-life, or anti-abortion, movement, a social and political movement opposing elective abortion on moral grounds and supporting its legal prohibition or restriction...
candidate since at least 1993. Coleman attributes his position on abortion to the death of two of his four children in infancy from a rare genetic disease. He supports limiting stem cell research to adult stem cells and stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood, and, in July 2006, he voted against lifting restrictions on federal research dollars for new embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cell
Embryonic stem cells are pluripotent stem cells derived from the inner cell mass of the blastocyst, an early-stage embryo. Human embryos reach the blastocyst stage 4–5 days post fertilization, at which time they consist of 50–150 cells...
lines
Stem cell line
A stem cell line is a family of constantly dividing cells, the product of a single group of stem cells. They are obtained from human or animal tissues and can replicate for long periods of time in vitro...
. Senator Coleman is a member of the Republican Main Street Partnership
Republican Main Street Partnership
The Republican Main Street Partnership is a group of moderate members of the United States Republican Party. They tend away from the dominant social conservatism of many Republicans and towards a moderate fiscal conservatism and limited government to a degree. The group is the rough equivalent of...
a group which supports Embryonic Stem Cell Research. Senator Coleman voted in favor of legislative intervention to prolong the life of severely brain-damaged Floridian Terri Schiavo
Terri Schiavo
The Terri Schiavo case was a legal battle in the United States between the legal guardians and the parents of Teresa Marie "Terri" Schiavo that lasted from 1998 to 2005...
.
Gay rights
Coleman opposes recognition of same-sex marriageSame-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
s by either the federal or state governments. In his 2002 Senate campaign, Coleman pledged support for an amendment to the United States Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
that would ban any state from issuing marriage licenses to people of the same sex. In 2004 and in June 2006, he voted in favor of such an amendment.
When he was mayor, Coleman refused to sign a city proclamation celebrating the annual gay pride
Gay pride
LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...
festival, explaining his opposition: "What we have had in St. Paul and Minneapolis for many years is signing a joint proclamation making it gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender month. I will say that I support human rights... And of course that includes sexual orientation. On the other hand, I've felt very strongly that it wasn't government's responsibility to give proclamations for people's sexuality. I don't think government has a responsibility to issue awards for one's sexuality."
Coleman hired Susan Kimberly, a transwoman to be his deputy mayor in 1998. Kimberly also worked as state legislative director in Coleman's Minnesota Senate office.
Marijuana issues
Coleman recently made this statement about marijuana legalization: "I oppose the legalization of marijuana because, as noted by the Office of National Drug Control Policy, marijuana can have serious adverse health affects on individuals. The health problems that may occur from this highly addictive drug include short-term memory loss, anxiety, respiratory illness and a risk of lung cancer that far exceeds that of tobacco products. It would also make our transportation, schools and workplaces, just as examples, more dangerous." Coleman himself, however, was known to be a frequent marijuana smoker as well as a marijuana legalization activist as an undergraduate student at Hofstra UniversityHofstra University
Hofstra University is a private, nonsectarian institution of higher learning located in the Village of Hempstead, New York, United States, about east of New York City: less than an hour away by train or car...
.
Relationship to the Bush administration
In 2002, the Bush Administration persuaded Coleman to run against Wellstone rather than try for the governorship.In December 2005, Coleman voted for a budget bill that cut funding from a number of programs, but kept funding for sugar beet farmers in Minnesota after Rove asked him to support the administration's position on the issue. Coleman told Congress Daily that he would not vote for a bill that cut sugar beet funding but "Karl Rove called me and asked what I wanted. A few hours later it was out of the bill."
On March 14, 2006, Coleman called on President Bush to replace or reorganize his staff, stating that they did not sufficiently have their "ears to the ground" on matters like Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
, Harriet Miers
Harriet Miers
Harriet Ellan Miers is an American lawyer and former White House Counsel. In 2005, she was nominated by President George W. Bush to be an Associate Justice of the U.S...
' failed Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
nomination, and the Dubai Ports World controversy
Dubai Ports World controversy
The Dubai Ports World controversy began in February 2006 and rose to prominence as a national security debate in the United States. At issue was the sale of port management businesses in six major U.S...
and accusing the administration of having a "tin ear." He stated that they showed inadequate "political sensitivity" in their handling of the issues.
On January 22, 2007, Coleman, along with fellow Republican Senators John Warner
John Warner
John William Warner, KBE is an American Republican politician who served as Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term United States Senator from Virginia from January 2, 1979, to January 3, 2009...
and Susan Collins
Susan Collins
Susan Margaret Collins is the junior United States Senator from Maine and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the Senate in 1996, she is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs...
, joined Democrats in opposition to President Bush's planned troop increase in Iraq
Iraq War troop surge of 2007
In the context of the Iraq War, the surge refers to United States President George W. Bush's 2007 increase in the number of American troops in order to provide security to Baghdad and Al Anbar Province....
.
DR-CAFTA
Sugar
Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...
industry (including Minnesota's sugar beet
Sugar beet
Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...
industry) were accommodated. He voted in favor of DR-CAFTA after obtaining quotas imposed on foreign sugar until 2008. He stood behind President Bush on August 2, 2005, as the trade agreement was signed into law. "This is a 3 year insurance policy that I have purchased for my sugar farmers..." he said.
Social Security
Coleman supported allowing workers to divert a portion of their Social SecuritySocial Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
contributions to the creation of individual accounts to be invested in the stock market, a variation of a general plan referred to by supporters as "personal accounts," referred to historically as "privatization."
He agreed with President Bush's statements that the contribution changes would apply to those younger than 55. "The Social Security system for those folks 55 and over will not change in any way, shape or form — no ifs, ands, or buts," he said.
Investigations Subcommittee and Galloway testimony
In May 2005, the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Coleman, held hearings on their investigation of abuses of the UN Oil-for-Food program, including oil smuggling, illegal kickbacks and use of surcharges, and Saddam HusseinSaddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
's use of oil vouchers for the purpose of buying influence abroad. These Oil-for-Food Program Hearings
Oil-for-Food Program Hearings
The Oil-for-Food Program Hearings were held by the U.S Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations beginning in 2004 ostensibly in order to investigate abuses of the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme in which the economically sanctioned country of Iraq was intended to be able to sell...
covered corporations (including Bayoil) and several well-known political figures of various nations (including Vladimir Zhironovsky), but are much remembered for the confrontational appearance of British Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
George Galloway
George Galloway
George Galloway is a British politician, author, journalist and broadcaster who was a Member of Parliament from 1987 to 2010. He was formerly an MP for the Labour Party, first for Glasgow Hillhead and later for Glasgow Kelvin, before his expulsion from the party in October 2003, the same year...
, a member of the RESPECT The Unity Coalition
RESPECT The Unity Coalition
Respect is a socialist political party in England and Wales founded in 2004. Its name is a contrived acronym standing for Respect, Equality, Socialism, Peace, Environmentalism, Community and Trade Unionism.-Policies:...
(Respect), a then-new British political party. Coleman accused Galloway of abuses, which Galloway forcefully denied.
The previous year, Coleman had called for the UN's Secretary-general
Secretary-General
-International intergovernmental organizations:-International nongovernmental organizations:-Sports governing bodies:...
Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...
to resign for other alleged program abuses. On June 2, 2006, Coleman responded to criticism that he had insufficiently investigated the Australian Wheat Board
AWB Limited
AWB Limited is a major grain marketing organisation based in Australia. It was a government body known as the Australian Wheat Board until 1 July 1999, when the AWB was transformed into a private company, owned by wheat growers...
(AWB) for sanctions busting, saying that there were legal and cost hurdles. The Prime Minister of Australia at the time, John Howard
John Howard
John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....
, was a supporter of the invasion of Iraq. The Australian ambassador to the U.S., Michael Thawley, met with Coleman in late 2004 to lobby against any investigation of AWB.
Government infrastructure
On February 10, 2006, in a meeting of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental AffairsUnited States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and...
of which Coleman was a member, during testimony of former Federal Emergency Management Agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...
(FEMA) director Michael D. Brown
Michael D. Brown
Michael DeWayne Brown was the first Undersecretary of Emergency Preparedness and Response , a division of the Department of Homeland Security . This position is generally referred to as the director or administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency . He was appointed in January 2003 by...
, Coleman attacked Brown for poor leadership during Hurricane Katrina disaster relief
Hurricane Katrina disaster relief
The disaster recovery response to Hurricane Katrina included federal government agencies suchas the Federal Emergency Management Agency , state and local-level agencies, federal and National Guard soldiers, non-governmental organizations, charities, and private individuals...
efforts, "you didn't provide the leadership, even with structural infirmities." Coleman went on, "you're not prepared to kind of put a mirror in front of your face and recognize your own inadequacies" and "the record reflects that you didn't get it or you didn't in writing or in some way make commands that would move people to do what has to be done until way after it should have been done." Brown responded combatively, "well, Senator, that's very easy for you to say sitting behind that dais and not being there in the middle of that disaster, watching that human suffering and watching those people dying and trying to deal with those structural dysfunctionalities" and implored Coleman to stick to questions. He later likened Coleman's charges to a "drive-by shooting." Brown had recently stated that he notified Department of Homeland Security and the White House of the tremendous scale of Katrina flooding earlier than had been previously reported.
On March 14, 2006, Coleman introduced a bill that would ban foreign companies from operating ports in the United States. (S.2410, 3/14/2006: A bill to amend the Homeland Security Act of 2002 to limit foreign control of investments in certain United States critical infrastructure).
In March 2007, Coleman introduced legislation (S. 754) to kill the Defense Travel System, a program intended to automate the purchasing of travel services by the U.S. Department of Defense, which accounts for more than half of the federal government's total outlays of around $11 billion annually for travel, including transportation, lodging, and rental cars. Shortly after he filed the legislation, Coleman received a generous contribution from the CEO of Carlson Companies
Carlson Companies
Carlson is a privately held international corporation in the hotel, restaurant, and travel industries. Headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, near Minneapolis, Carlson brands and services, including franchised operations, employ more than 170,000 people in more than 150 countries and territories...
, which owns Carlson Wagonlit Travel, a business travel management firm whose CW Government Travel unit provides travel management services for some federal agencies. The Carlson Companies is based in Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
. Over the years, Coleman has received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from people connected with Carlson Companies.
Deep Marine Technologies
While running for re-election in 2008, Coleman was mentioned in a Texas lawsuit by Paul McKim, CEO of Deep Marine Technologies (DMT) against Nasser Kazeminy. Kazeminy is a longtime supporter of Coleman and owner of a controlling share of DMT. The petition alleges that Kazeminy used DMT to funnel $75,000 or more to Coleman's wife Laurie through her employer, Hays Companies, in order to enrich Senator Coleman. McKim's petition covers several issues, of which the Coleman matter is only one. Neither Coleman nor his wife are named as defendants in the suit. On Friday, October 31, a related suit was filed in Delaware Chancery Court by minority shareholders in DMT. The Delaware suit also alleges that DMT was used as a conduit for unearned funds to Laurie Coleman through Hays Companies, at the behest of Kazeminy. As in the Texas case, the Colemans are not named as defendants. Coleman has not been charged with any ethical or legal wrongdoing.Coleman responded with a campaign ad in which he denied the allegations and blamed them on his opponent in the 2008 senate race, Democrat Al Franken.
Coleman's most recent Senate financial disclosure form discloses that Laurie Coleman gets a salary from Hays Companies, but Senate rules do not require the salary amount to be revealed.
In June of 2011, Coleman and Kazeminy were vindicated when former FBI Director Louis Freeh announced that the investigation against them had been closed.
Freeh, an attorney for Kazeminy, and a former FBI Director in the Clinton Administration said he learned the Justice Department had ended the investigation in a February 24th meeting with Andrew Levchuk of the department's Public Integrity Section in Washington.
Freeh was hired by Kazeminy to conduct a thorough, independent investigation of all charges, and concluded that there was no wrong doing or impropriety one behalf of the Colemans or Kazeminy. Freeh said both his investigation, and a separate Deep Marine board investigation, concluded McKim made false claims in an attempt to force a larger severance package out of Deep Marine.
McKim’s allegations were repeated hundreds of times in local and national media reports during the waning days of the 2008 election. According to Coleman, millions were spent to them “into multi million dollar attacks against my family and Nasser Kazeminy”.
Freeh says McKim later prepared an affidavit that would have recanted his allegations against the Coleman’s and Kazeminy in exchange for a financial settlement. He concluded that McKim had a clear motive to use false allegations as leverage to enrich himself. McKim still questions the legitimacy of insurance payments and says he has done nothing wrong , but another attorney for Kazeminy says his client has not ruled out future litigation against McKim.
Political observers now suggest it is possible that the allegations against Coleman may have handed victory to Al Franken, who ended up winning the seat by a razor-thin margin of a few hundred votes after a contentious recount process.
2008 re-election campaign
In 2008, Coleman's opponents for reelection were Dean BarkleyDean Barkley
Dean Malcolm Barkley is a politician who briefly served as a member of the United States Senate from Minnesota following the death of Paul Wellstone...
and the DFL
Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party
The Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party is a major political party in the state of Minnesota and the state affiliate of the Democratic Party. It was created on April 15, 1944, with the merger of the Minnesota Democratic Party and the Farmer–Labor Party...
nominee, former Air America host and comedian Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Franken is the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He is a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which affiliates with the national Democratic Party....
. On the day after the election, Coleman led in votes and claimed victory in the race. But Minnesota law requires an automatic recount when the margin between the leading candidates is less than 0.5% of the vote, and the margin between Coleman and Franken was about 0.01%. Barkley came in third with 15%.
The initial results of the recount put Franken ahead by 225 votes, out of almost 2.9 million votes cast. On December 24, 2008, after losing a unanimous decision at the hands of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Coleman's lawyers stated that it was now a "virtual certainty" that Coleman would contest the results of the election.
Coleman's term officially expired on January 3, 2009.
On January 5, Franken was certified as the winner of the recount by 225 votes. Coleman filed a legal challenge of the results on January 6, and a three-judge panel was seated.
On February 3, the panel allowed Coleman to introduce evidence that as many as 4,800 absentee ballots were wrongly rejected and should now be counted. The Franken campaign had tried to limit Coleman to bringing evidence on only the 650 absentee ballots cited in the initial court filing.
On April 1, the panel ordered that an additional 400 absentee ballots be examined. After examining the 400 ballots on April 6, the panel ordered that an additional 351 ballots be opened and counted. On April 7, the additional 351 ballots were opened and counted before the panel and a packed courtroom. Franken got an additional 198 votes, Coleman gained 111 votes, and other candidates received 42, increasing Franken's lead to 312 votes.
On April 13, the three-judge panel issued its final ruling, sweeping aside all of Coleman's legal claims and declaring Franken the winner of the race by 312 votes. In its unanimous decision, the panel said, "The overwhelming weight of the evidence indicates that the November 4, 2008 election was conducted fairly, impartially and accurately", and said that Franken should be issued a Certificate of Election. The panel ruled that Coleman failed to prove that mistakes or irregularities in the treatment of absentee ballots would have altered the outcome of the election.
Coleman appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court, which heard oral arguments on June 1. On June 30, the court unanimously ruled in Franken's favor, declaring him the winner of the election, prompting Coleman's concession.
2010 Governor's Race and Beyond
After sitting Minnesota Governor Tim PawlentyTim Pawlenty
Timothy James "Tim" Pawlenty , also known affectionately among supporters as T-Paw, is an American politician who served as the 39th Governor of Minnesota . He was a Republican candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election from May to August 2011...
announced that he would not seek re-election in 2010 it was widely anticipated that Coleman would run for Governor. Early polls showed him the favorite among Republicans and polling the strongest among all potential Republican candidates.
However Coleman announced on January 17 that he would not run for Governor in 2010 saying,
"I love Minnesota and I love public service, but this is not the right time for me and my family to conduct a campaign for Governor.
"Timing is everything. The timing on this race is both a bit too soon and a bit too late. It is too soon after my last race and too late to do a proper job of seeking the support of delegates who will decide in which direction our party should go. The commitments I have to my family and the work I am currently engaged in do not allow me to now go forward."
Coleman was rumored to be a possible candidate for the Republican National Committee's Chairmanship. He emphasized, however, that he would not run against Michael Steele should he seek re-election. When Steele announced his candidacy for re-election, Coleman stated that he would not be a candidate.
Electoral history
See also
- USA Congressional staff edits to Wikipedia
- Politics of MinnesotaPolitics of MinnesotaMinnesota is known for a politically active citizenry, with populism being a longstanding force among the state's political parties. Minnesota has consistently high voter turnout; in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, 78.2% of eligible Minnesotans voted – the highest percentage of any U.S. state...
- Jeff LarsonJeff LarsonJeff Larson is an American political consultant and entrepreneur who served as CEO of the Minneapolis St. Paul 2008 Host Committee, which organized the 2008 Republican National Convention...
External links
- Coleman for Senate, Campaign site
- Collected news and commentary from The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
- Profile from SourceWatchSourceWatchSourceWatch is an internet wiki site that is a collaborative project of the liberal Center for Media and Democracy...
CongresspediaCongresspediaCongresspedia was a wiki that ran from April 2006 to March 2009, designed to hold information on the workings of the U.S. Congress. It was fully contained within SourceWatch, a larger wiki meant to document the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda. The Congresspedia portion of...