Free Republic

Sen. Al Franken officially resigned on Jan. 2, nearly a month after he announced his plans to step down from Congress amid numerous sexual misconduct allegations that began in November of last year. Aides to the senator told Fox News that Franken has provided his letter of resignation to Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton. Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, who is replacing Franken, is expected to be sworn in on Wednesday. Franken, a Minnesota Democrat who has been in office since 2009, was plagued by multiple accusations of sexual misconduct over the past month and faced a Senate Ethics Committee investigation....

ormer Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., is considering running for the recently vacated U.S. Senate seat held by Al Franken. “I’ve had people contact me and urge me to run for that Senate seat,” Bachmann said recently on televangelist Jim Bakker's television show. “And the only reason I would run is for the ability to take these principles into the United States Senate and to be able to advocate for these principles.”

U.S. Sen. Al Franken said goodbye to staff members and supporters in Minneapolis on Thursday night, in his first public appearance in Minnesota since being accused of sexual harassment. Franken will officially step down from the Senate on Tuesday, with his successor – Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith – scheduled to be sworn in Wednesday to complete Franken’s term, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. The Democrat, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, said he didn't know what to expect when he first ran for office, “and of course, neither did Minnesotans.”

Luther Strange isn’t the only current US Senator on his way out the door. In a few days, Al Franken will submit his resignation as promised last week, and Tina Smith will take his seat at least until a special election in November chooses his successor. As it turns out, Minnesota voters aren’t entirely happy about Franken’s resignation — and half of them want Franken to renege on his pledge to resign, according to a new PPP poll: -50% of voters think he should not resign, to only 42% who think he should go through with his planned resignation. There...

GOP Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who chairs the Rules Committee, said further particulars cannot be made public, in order to respect the confidentiality afforded to victims. “While the Rules Committee has been eager to provide this information in a transparent manner, it has been our priority to protect the victims involved in these settlements from further harm,” the senator said in a statement attending the report.

The Senate approved a short-term spending plan to keep the government open Thursday but not without nearly a third of the chamber dissenting for various reasons. The funding bill, called a continuing resolution, keeps the government open through mid-January. The legislation needed at least 60 votes and passed by 66 votes, with 32 nays and two senators not voting. That’s double the 14 Democrats who dissented against the temporary spending bill two weeks ago. Most of the nay votes were from Democrats who are desperate to deal with immigration issues.

Sen. Al Franken will step down on Jan. 2, a spokesman for the Minnesota Democrat said Wednesday.

Sen. Al Franken will resign on Jan. 2, per multiple reports. His successor, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, will be sworn in on Jan. 3.

Minnesota Republican enters special election race to replace Franken © Getty Images Minnesota state Sen. Karin Housley (R) launched a bid for Senate on Tuesday, making her the first Republican to enter the special election race to replace Sen. Al Franken (D), who is expected to resign in the coming weeks. In a video posted on her Twitter account, Housley played up her deep roots in the state as the daughter of Minnesota school teachers.

Activist Zephyr Teachout, who ran for governor in 2014 and Congress in 2016; she lost both times, is troubled by Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) resignation. Mind you, the Minnesota Democrat has not packed up his bags and left. He said he would resign in the near future. It was one of the most soporific and non-introspective resignation speeches—and it wasn’t just conservatives who noted this. Some journalists noted that Franken never apologized for his actions. True. He also called his accusers liars, which is also true. The man didn’t want to go, possibly because he thought his party affiliation could...

The drama between Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and President Donald Trump has reached absurd heights. First, there was that rather tweet from the president, which was not out of the ordinary. He accused Gillibrand of doing “anything” for campaign contributions. Gillibrand said this was a sexist smear, despite the president using that line on pretty much everyone. This all is part of the ongoing sexual harassment reckoning on the Hill and elsewhere. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is gone, and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has signaled his intention to leave…whenever that may be. Gillibrand has called on Trump to resign, as...

...“Though I never anticipated this moment, I am resolved to do everything I can to move Minnesota forward,” Smith said. “I will be a fierce advocate in the U.S. Senate for equity and fairness.”

Dec 13 (Reuters) - Minnesota's Democratic Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith was appointed as U.S. senator on Wednesday to replace Al Franken, who resigned after being accused of sexual harassment, the state's governor said at a news conference. Governor Mark Dayton said that Smith will serve a one-year term in the Senate, concluding in January 2019. Smith, 59, will run in a special election for the seat next year. Smith became lieutenant governor in January 2015. The Star Tribune said she previously worked as Dayton's chief of staff and held positions at General Mills and Planned Parenthood. Last week Franken, 66,...

…There is little chance they can hold this seat in 2020 (unless Republicans nominate Roy Moore again). Meanwhile, Jones deprives them of their favorite talking point that Republicans are all drooling knuckle-dragging morons. Worse, it means Al Franken will likely have to go through with his resignation after all…

There is a strong argument to be made that Sen. Al Franken's central reason for resigning is he knew he would be reduced to being shunned by his peers and the press if he were to continue representing Minnesota in the congressional upper chamber. In short, he would have become a joke, an afterthought, a pariah, a no one. For the egocentric Minnesotan who was courted by everyone in the Democratic Party to headline their fundraisers -- both for their re-elections as well as their state party's coffers -- and fawned over for his Hollywood pedigree and admired by progressives...

RUSH: Man, oh, man, what a strategy the Democrats seem to have assembled here, folks. I mean, it looks like they’re willing to throw an endless number of people overboard on the sexual harassment stuff just to get Trump and Roy Moore. It’s kind of breathtaking to behold this. Greetings. Great to have you. Rush Limbaugh at 800-282-2882, if you want to be on the program. The email address, ElRushbo@eibnet.us. There are more sexual harassment revelations today. The NFL Network and three players, including Marshall Faulk and Ike Taylor. Ike Taylor, number 24, cornerback for the Steelers, former. And Marshall...

Despite asserting “I’ve done nothing wrong” and expressing confidence that he would have been cleared of wrongdoing by a Senate Ethics Committee investigation, Sen Al Franken (D-Minn) announced that he would be resigning his seat “in the next few weeks.” Franken, pressured by dozens of his fellow Democrats to “resign for the good of the Party,” complained about “the double standard in our society that lets Donald Trump get away with boasting about groping women, but hangs me because I actually took the initiative to interact with these women. As Trump said on the Access Hollywood tape ‘women let you...

<p>Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich on Sunday defended Democratic Sen. Al Franken, saying calls for his resignation amid sexual misconduct allegations were “purely and simply hysteria.”</p> <p>In remarks on Fox News Sunday, the Georgia Republican last week compared the Democratic Party response to the sexual harassment scandal as akin to a lynching.</p>

So, Al Franken is a lewd boor, an unfunny buffoon, an intellectual midget, and an adolescent crude serial invader of womens’ space. The latter triggered his blindfolded walk-the-plank exit from the USS Senate. How convenient for the Democrats to have a do-over, only a third of the way through Franken’s second underwhelming term. But the gaggle of Democrat moral peacocks only purged Franken from their caucus because his political value didn’t extend beyond another replaceable vote, a mere commodity. Franken offered zero policy depth, wholly bereft of legislative scholarship, whose exposure on vital Senate committees, such as the Judiciary Committee,...

Well, Stuart SmalleyÂ’s time in the U.S. Senate has come and gone. After eight women accused him of sexual harassment, the Minnesota Democrat decided resign in the coming weeks. Leeann Tweeden, a radio host, first lobbed allegations that he forcibly kissed and groped her during a 2006 USO tour through the Middle East. Lindsay Menz accused him of grabbing her buttocks during a photo op at the Minnesota State Fair in 2010. Before Thanksgiving, two more women alleged Franken grabbed their rear ends in 2007 and 2008 respectively; both occurred at political events. For a while, Democrats circled the wagons....