On The Take In The Land Of 10,000 Lakes?

Question: What do you get when you combine a hotly-contested Senate race with a litigious incumbent whose wife was mentioned in a Texas lawsuit over financial impropriety on an insurance payment? You get a Texas Blue news item!

An interesting twist came up yesterday on a hotly contested race for the U.S. Senate involving an incumbent Republican being challenged by a Democratic candidate carried on the shoulders of the progressive grassroots. Ah, but it isn't our own Senate race between Senator John Cornyn and State Representative Rick Noriega — it's the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota between Senator Norm Coleman and progressive media figure Al Franken.

Earlier today the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Huffington Post both ran items mentioning a lawsuit filed in Texas alleging that one of Senator Coleman's contributors, Nasser Kazeminy, had arranged for Laurie Coleman, Senator's Coleman's wife and an employee of insurance broker Hayes Companies, to receive $75,000 from Mr. Kazeminy's company DMT disguised as payment for insurance. The money quote from Mr. Kazeminy in the lawsuit:

In March 2007, Kazeminy began ordering the payment of corporate funds to companies and individuals who tendered no goods or services to DMT for the states purpose of trying to financially assist United States Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota. In March 2007, Kazeminy telephoned B.J. Thomas, then DMT’s Chief Financial Officer. In that conversation, Kazeminy told Mr. Thomas that “US Senators don’t make [expletive deleted]” and that he was going to find a way to get money to Coleman and wanted to utilize DMT in the process…Kazeminy told Mr. McKim that he [Kazeminy] would make sure there was paperwork to make it appear as though the payments were made in connection with the legitimate transations, explaining further that Senator Coleman’s wife, Laurie, worked for the Hays Companies, an insurance broker in Minneapolis, and that the payments could be made to Hays for insurance. When Mr. McKim made further objections, Kazeminy repeatedly threatened to fire Mr. McKim, telling him “this is my company” and that he and Thomas had better follow his orders in paying Hays. Subsequently, Kazeminy caused Hays to produce a document entitled “Disclosure of Service Fees” which purported to legitimize the basis of the payments to be made to Hays by DMT.

MN Publius has more on the relationship between Mr. Kazeminy and Senator Coleman here.

As of the publication of this article, the status of the lawsuit is unclear. While some reports are that a settlement was reached, other reports indicate that the suit is still pending. Regardless of the outcome of the lawsuit, what is clear is that, to quote Desi Arnaz, someone's got some 'splainin to do.