December 6, 2017

A Growing Number of Democratic Senators Call on Al Franken to Resign

Franken will be making an announcement tomorrow.

Ron Sachs/Zuma

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

The chorus of Democrats calling on Minnesota Sen. Al Franken to step aside just got a whole lot louder. On Wednesday, as a seventh woman came forward to accuse Franken of inappropriate sexual conduct, a group of female Democratic senators led by New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand called on Franken to resign.

“I believe it would be better for our country if he sent a clear message that any kind of mistreatment of women in our society isn’t acceptable by stepping aside to let someone else serve,” Gillibrand said in a statement posted on Facebook.

Gillibrand was joined within minutes by Sens. Mazie Hironi (D-Hawaii), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). They were the first Senate Democrats to call on their colleague to resign. After Franken was first accused last month of forcibly kissing a colleague during a 2006 USO tour, he seemed determined to ride out the scandal and wait for the conclusion of a Senate ethics investigation into his conduct. But now he faces quickly growing opposition within the Senate. After these female senators demanded he leave the Senate, several Democratic male colleagues joined the call for Franken to quit. The group included Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.), and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). And Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted Franken should step down.

On Tuesday, longtime Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) announced his retirement after facing a series of sexual harassment allegations. Conyers was pressed to resign by his party’s leader, Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). And after Democratic Rep. Ruben Kihuen of Nevada was accused of sexually harassing a staffer during his 2016 campaign, Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee, joined Pelosi in asking him to resign. (Kihuen has not.) 

Franken’s office has issued a brief statement saying that he will be making an announcement tomorrow. 

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate