Al Franken, a Democrat, was sworn in as U.S. senator from Minnesota in July 2009 after the dispute over the result of the extremely close November 2008 election between him and incumbent Norm Coleman was settled. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 in the former comedian’s favor on June 30, and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed the certificate of election declaring Franken the winner by 312 votes. Franken became the 60th Democrat in the Senate, giving the party a filibuster-proof majority that lasted until Republican Scott Brown was seated as the junior senator from Massachusetts in February 2010. Read More

Al Franken, a Democrat, was sworn in as U.S. senator from Minnesota in July 2009 after the dispute over the result of the extremely close November 2008 election between him and incumbent Norm Coleman was settled. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 in the former comedian’s favor on June 30, and Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed the certificate of election declaring Franken the winner by 312 votes. Franken became the 60th Democrat in the Senate, giving the party a filibuster-proof majority that lasted until Republican Scott Brown was seated as the junior senator from Massachusetts in February 2010.

Franken was born in New York City and moved at age 4 to Minnesota, where the family settled in the heavily Jewish suburb of St. Louis Park, just west of Minneapolis. Franken’s father was a printing salesman and his mother was a real estate agent. From a young age, Franken reconciled his competing political and comedic impulses by combining them. As a seventh grader, he ran for class president as “Honest Al” and hung posters in the hallways picturing him with a fake beard and a stovepipe hat. Franken graduated from Harvard and took a writing job in New York for the then-new Saturday Night Live. For most of the next 20 years, Franken helped to define the program’s sense of humor as it evolved from a fledgling variety show into a pop culture mainstay. Franken also frequently appeared on the program, most memorably as Stuart Smalley, an obnoxious self-help guru.

Franken left Saturday Night Live in 1995 and began working as a political commentator. After the Republicans swept to victory in Congress in 1994, he wrote four books, including Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot. In 2004, he joined the new liberal Air America Radio network with a daily, three-hour show opposite Limbaugh’s program. Franken spent the next three years excoriating conservatives of every stripe, from Bush administration officials to Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly. Franken began thinking about returning to Minnesota to run for the Senate after Democratic Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash in October 2002 while running for re-election against former St. Paul Mayor Coleman. Democrats chose former Vice President Walter Mondale to replace Wellstone on the ballot, and despite Mondale’s prominence and long political history in the state, Coleman won 50%-47%.

In 2006, Franken moved his radio talk show from New York to Minneapolis, and in February 2007, he announced he would run for the Senate. Republicans immediately drew attention to Franken’s liberal on-air commentary. His defenders noted that his program often featured in-depth interviews with policy experts. He appeared to have a clear shot at Coleman when lawyer Mike Ciresi dropped out of the race for the Democratic-Farmer-Labor nomination in March 2008. But damaging revelations on the eve of the DFL endorsement convention in June threatened Franken’s nomination. A sexually explicit satirical article that he wrote for Playboy in 2000 about a virtual sex institute diminished enthusiasm for him among feminist groups. He apologized for the article and won the party’s endorsement. But polling showed him looking increasingly weak against Coleman.

Franken slowly won over skeptical Democrats and kept pace with Coleman in fundraising. The dynamics of the race shifted considerably in July, when former Sen. Dean Barkley entered the race as the Independence Party candidate. Throughout October, Barkley consistently drew about 20% in polls. Franken attacked Coleman for reportedly receiving free suits and below-market rent in Washington from political benefactors. But Franken was embarrassed by disclosures that he owed $70,000 in back taxes, and he paid a $25,000 fine to New York state for failing to carry workmen’s compensation insurance for his employees. This was an expensive contest; the candidates each spent more than $19 million. As the returns came in on Election Night, they showed the race to be exceedingly tight, with 42% for both Coleman and Franken and 15% for Barkley.

On Nov. 18, the State Canvassing Board showed Coleman with a 206-vote lead. A recount began the next day, and the board ultimately concluded Franken was 225 votes ahead. Coleman contended that 133 ballots were missing in the recount and contested the results. On March 31, a three-judge court issued an order designating 400 absentee ballots for review; 351 of them were opened and counted. And on April 13, the judges ruled that Franken had received the highest number of votes by a margin of 312. Coleman appealed to the state Supreme Court, and his lawyers suggested that he might appeal an adverse ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court on the grounds that different counties had used varying standards in determining the validity of absentee ballots. But after the state Supreme Court ruled, Coleman called Franken to congratulate him and said he had decided against further challenges. By then, each candidate had spent $6 million on the recount process. Franken was sworn in on July 7.

With his arrival in the Senate, Democrats had the 60 votes they needed to prevent Republicans from using the filibuster to block bills. As a new senator who had achieved celebrity in another role, Franken, like Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, set out to work hard and stay out of the limelight. He refused to talk to the national press and spent the August recess on a strenuous schedule in Minnesota. His first bill, to provide 200 service dogs for wounded veterans, was co-sponsored by three Republicans and passed into law. He worked with GOP moderate Olympia Snowe of Maine to let women in the military have access to emergency contraception. And he joined Indiana Republican Richard Lugar on funding for diabetes prevention.

But he also showed asperity on occasion. His Republican Senate colleagues took umbrage when the liberal MoveOn.org and state Democratic chairmen accused them on being soft on rape because they voted against Franken’s amendment to bar defense contracts to firms that required arbitration for claims of workplace discrimination including sexual assault; the Republicans felt that Franken encouraged such attacks. While presiding over the Senate, he cut off independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut with an objection of his own, and later made faces while Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was speaking. Franken apologized to McConnell. At a White House meeting in February 2010, he excoriated top Obama aide David Axelrod for failing to set a clear course on health care.

Legislatively, Franken often took a liberal approach. He sought unsuccessfully to amend the health care bill in October 2009 with a provision eliminating the tax deduction for pharmaceutical firms’ advertising, a change estimated to save the government $37 billion. That month, he also sponsored a bill for country-of-origin labeling of dairy products. And in May 2010, the Senate voted 64-35 in favor of his amendment requiring the Securities and Exchange Commission to appoint an investor-led board to select securities ratings firms on a rotating basis.

On most issues, Franken supported the Obama administration, although sometimes reluctantly. In January 2010, after a trip to Afghanistan (where he had entertained troops with comic routines), he told the St. Paul Pioneer Press, “I think the president’s plan, it’s probably the best of a series of options that weren’t so great. But, you know, I will support him on this.” After Obama agreed in December 2010 to extend the Bush-era tax cuts for everyone, not just lower- and middle-class taxpayers as Democrats preferred, Franken said he would vote for it only reluctantly.

Polling in Minnesota indicated that Franken continued to polarize voters; he received roughly equal numbers of favorable and unfavorable ratings. Senate Democratic leaders asked Franken, a magnet for Democratic donors, to head their campaign committee for the 2012 election. But he declined, saying he needed to stay focused on Minnesota issues.

Several local issues energized Franken. Despite objections from environmental groups, in May 2011 Franken supported a bill authorizing construction of a bridge over the St. Croix River near Stillwater. In late 2011, Franken tried to help his cold-weather state by co-sponsoring a bill to increase low-income heating assistance funding. Franken sought questions from the CEO of Accretive Health, which was accused of using unsavory tactics to prevent treatment for patients from a group of Minnesota hospitals. In May 2012, the consulting company provided a 29-page response to Franken and denied that it broke federal laws.

Despite his reputation as a partisan, Franken has tried some lighthearted gestures to foster better relations between the two parties. He set up a “Hotdish Off” competition with the Minnesota delegation, which attracted TV cameras looking for images of conservative Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. and Franken cooking side-by-side. Franken also organized a “Secret Santa” gift exchange among Democrats and Republicans.

National Journal rated Franken the 13th most liberal member of the Senate in 2011. During a review of the planned AT&T takeover of T-Mobile, Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee member Franken broke with unions and opposed the merger. Franken felt the deal would mean higher consumer prices, while the Communications Workers of America supported the merger because it could add some 20,000 new union members. The $39 billion takeover eventually collapsed.