Franken and Klobuchar voted against long-term FAA funding because the bill contained an anti-union provision.

​The bill providing long-term funding for the Federal Aviation Administration is a case study in how complicated legislation coming before the U.S. Senate can be.

As a condition of funding the FAA long-term, congressional Republicans demanded that the percentage of transportation workers' signatures required to petition for a union to be formed increase from 35 to 50. Unsurprisingly, Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar oppose that provision, but the bill also contained two separate provisions each of the Minnesota senators support -- protecting funding for small, rural airports in Minnesota, and funding to hasten the transition to a satellite-based air traffic control navigation system that's expected to reduce delays and lower pollution.

In the end, Franken and Klobuchar determined that the anti-union provision was the most crucial aspect of the bill, which they voted against. The bill ended up passing by a vote of 75-20, with five Republicans joining 15 Democrats in opposition.

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Franken wants Fannie/Freddie to put their money where their mouth is.

​Today, Senator Franken plans to introduce legislation that would help more homeowners refinance their home mortgages, saving them money and, in some cases, helping them keep their homes.

Franken's Helping Homeowners Refinance Act comes on the heels of a ProPublica/NPR News report detailing how Freddie Mac's investment portfolio includes "multibillion-dollar bets that pay off if homeowners stay trapped in expensive mortgages with interest rates well above current rates." Those bets are in tension with the mortgage giant's mission to create affordability in the housing market.

Franken's legislation would prohibit the Federal Housing Finance Agency, regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, from making investments that create disincentives to help homeowners.

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Franken supports marriage equality, though he might not have a firm grasp on how widely his stance is shared.

​Not that there was much doubt about his stance to begin with, but Senator Franken has made it clear that he supports marriage equality.

In a video released yesterday by the Human Rights Campaign, Franken points out that he's been married to his wife, Franni, for 36 years -- "many of them happy." He says he believes "everyone should be able to marry the person they love, and I think our government should help people make those loving, life-long commitments."

He later asks viewers to "join me and the majority of Americans who support marriage equality." There's only one problem with that -- recent polling indicates a plurality of folks in Franken's left-leaning home state actually support restricting marriage to one man and one woman.

Video after the jump.
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Though their support for PIPA angered some, our senators appear to be in very good political shape.

​Apparently the PIPA debacle hasn't significantly hurt the political fortunes of Al Franken or Amy Klobuchar.

A new Public Policy Polling poll conducted over last weekend concludes that Klobuchar will be very tough to beat this year. Franken's favorable numbers, while weaker than Klobuchar's, indicate more Minnesotans approve of him than don't.

It looks like it may be difficult for Republicans to wrest control of either of Minnesota's senate seats from Democrats anytime soon, though Franken still has a couple more years before the 2014 election for PIPA-style missteps.

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Franken and Klobuchar has received considerable financial support from the media industry.

​It's a cliche, but true -- when trying to figure out the whys and wherefores of politics, you should follow the money. And in the case of Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken's support for the now-stalled PIPA legislation, the money trail appears to lead back to big media.

Campaign finance records indicate that big media companies have been huge supporters of both of our senators -- and big media, of course, stands to gain from PIPA through more stringent copyright regulations meant to wipe pirated content off the internet.

Could our senators' support for PIPA have been bought and paid for?

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Though they aren't quite ready to admit PIPA was a bad idea, our senators are now open to "compromise."

​Yesterday's online blackouts protesting SOPA and PIPA haven't been ignored by Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, both of whom are co-sponsors of PIPA.

Though both continue to support some form of legislation aimed at curbing foreign piracy, spokesmen for each said that the Senators are now interested in a "compromise."

All the other members of Minnesota's congressional indicated that they either oppose the proposed legislation or are at least leaning toward opposing it.

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Al Franken wants to update the Violence Against Women Act specifically to fit Native American women's needs.

​The Minnesota Indian Women's Sexual Assault Coalition released a report today aggregating the stories of Native American women from around the state involved in prostitution.

Titled "Garden of Truth," the 72-page study details horrific tales of 105 women, finding that a striking amount had been victims of childhood sexual abuse, rape, and violence.

"After you get into prostitution, you get used to it; it's like using the bathroom," one interviewee told researchers. "You don't think about it after a while, it takes all your feeling of being a woman away."

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Al Franken asked questions that Google CEO Eric Schmidt can't answer.

​Al Franken loves Google. He just doesn't trust it.

That's what came out at yesterday's contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, which saw Google's CEO Eric Schmidt squirming a bit under the hot light of government oversight.

Franken, among other senators, expressed concern about Google's virtual monopoly of online searches, and the responsibility that comes with such a unique power. At one point, Franken made reference to a previous question put to Schmidt, asking whether Google's search rankings were unbiased. After some hesitation, Schmidt had answered, "I think so."

"If you don't know," Franken said, "who does? I, really -- that really bothers me, because that's the crux of this, isn't it? And you don't know."

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Al Franken says Obama's jobs plan can't survive political wrangling.

​Al Franken watched the debate to raise the debt ceiling drag on -- and on, and on -- over party politics. Franken doesn't want to see the same thing happen with Barack Obama's new jobs plan, but he fears it might anyway.

America's unemployed can't afford more bickering like took place in the "debt ceiling debacle," Franken said in an interview with a South Dakota CBS station yesterday.

Obama's plan, which calls for a combination of public works spending and cuts to the payroll tax, got positive feedback from as partisan a figure as House Speaker John Boehner, and only the far wings of American politics rejected it on its face. (Paging Congresswoman Bachmann.)

But, with another election day still more than a year away, Franken  said there won't be any plan, or any new jobs, "if we have a continuation of this whole unwillingness to compromise."
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Al Franken is funnier than Michele Bachmann, unless she's playing a character.

​Al Franken likes Michele Bachmann. No, really, he does.

In fact, he likes her so much he wants her to get the Republican nomination for president so she can get crushed by Barack Obama in 2012.

Franken disclosed his feelings during a taping of MPR's Midday with the soon-to-retire Gary Eichten yesterday.

"Do you think Michele Bachmann has a legitimate chance to win the Republican Party presidential nomination?" Eichten asked.

Without a moment's hesitation, Franken deadpanned: "I hope so."
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