Harry Reid died yesterday, and I will miss him terribly. Harry and I were friends, and we’d talk on the phone periodically. When he was majority leader, almost every phone conversation with Harry was short and would end abruptly. He wouldn’t even say goodbye. He’d just hang up. Our calls…

How to Reform the Filibuster Al Franken and Norm Ornstein With the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill (BIB) and the impending passage of the Build Back Better legislation, Congress is ready to move on to its next urgent priority—protecting our elections and voters from disruption, chicanery and voter suppression….

When journalists write about the Republican takeover of the federal courts, they tend to focus on three events. 1) Harry Reid going nuclear in 2013. 2) Mitch McConnell blocking Merrick Garland. 3) Candidate Donald Trump promising just weeks before the 2016 election to choose Supreme Court nominees solely from a shortlist provided by The Federalist Society and The Heritage Society.

I won the recount in my first race on January 5, 2009, in time to be seated with the rest of my Senate class. But Norm Coleman filed what is called an election contest, and I had to cool my jets until that was settled. Mainly, I spent my time…

Republicans say tax cuts pay for themselves. They never do. How about we try something that actually does work?

On a Thursday evening in July, 2009, one of us had just cast his last vote of the week on the Senate floor and wished a Republican colleague a good weekend by saying, “I’ll see you on Monday!” The colleague replied, “Oh, I won’t be here on Monday. It’s a…

This piece was originally published in the Los Angeles Times on November 10, 2020. The careful observer will notice that Joe Biden’s approach to leadership is very different from Donald Trump’s. While Trump has sought to exploit divisions along racial, religious and philosophical lines — stoking grievances, suspicion and sometimes violence…

I did a nice interview with the great Christiane Amanpour earlier this week. See if you agree with me that I come off as extremely personable and insightful.  Subscribe to The Al Franken Podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Signup for the Al Franken Newsletter here.

Now caught on tape telling Bob Woodward that he knew how deadly serious the Coronavirus was all along, President Trump is telling the American people that he misled us for our own good.  You know, so that we wouldn’t panic. We can only imagine what would have happened had we,…