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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Al Franken (D)</p>           MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (Legal Newsline)-Even though the Minnesota Supreme Court is still considering a request by Al Franken to force state election officials to provide him an election certificate, the Democrat's staff has begun publicly calling him the state's senator-elect.<br /><br />In a press release Monday, the Franken camp said the \"Sen-elect Franken\" would be holding a roundtable discussion with local officials on the recently-passed $787 billion economic stimulus package.<br /><br />In the same statement, the Democratic mayor of St. Paul also refers to Franken as the state's soon-to-be new senator.<br /><br />\"Right now, Washington is debating matters of enormous consequence to Minnesota's economy,\" Mayor Chris Coleman said. \"Senator-elect Franken understands what our cities need to prosper and we're ready for him to go to Washington to be a voice for us.\"<br /><br />In the last recount, Franken had a 225 vote lead over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.<br /><br />If Franken is seated in the Senate, it would increase the number of seats controlled by Democrats in the chamber to 59, just one shy of the 60 required to force a vote on legislation amid objections by Republicans.<br /><br />Franken wrote for and starred on NBC's \"Saturday Night Live\" comedy program from 1975 to 1980 and again from 1985 to 1995. More recently, he hosted a radio show on liberal Air America Radio.<br /><br />On Jan. 5, the state Supreme Court ruled in favor of the comedian-turned-politician in a separate matter, rejecting a Coleman request to include an additional 650 absentee ballots in the now-completed recount.<br /><br /><i>From Legal Newsline: Reach staff reporter Chris Rizo at <a href=\"mailto:chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com\">chrisrizo@legalnewsline.com.</a></i><br />"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://legalnewsline.com/stories/510520586-franken-goes-by-senator-elect-despite-lawsuit>