According to various sources which can not be named but that are being reported by the Capitol Report, the Minnesota Supreme Court is likely to make a decision today, Thursday, June 18th. If the decision is anything other than to support (uphold) the decision of the three judge panel which previously ruled in Franken’s favor, several legal experts in the state and across the country are going to drop dead on the spot of shock and chagrin.
It is not know if Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty is going to be ordered by the court to produce an election certificate, but it is generally thought that he will not issue one unless so ordered. If the court does not order the Governor to carry out his legal duty, it may be required that Franken makes an argument to the court to do so.
One thing people have not commented on yet to my knowledge is this: In the event that Franken has to argue for the court to order Pawlenty to act on the court’s ruling, what sort of argument will Coleman make to the contrary? That could be interesting.
In the mean time, I understand the Coleman legal and recount team has offered its services to parties in Iran. I wish I was joking about that.
My fingers are raw from all the drumming on the table they’ve done waiting for this thing to finally be over. I mean, hell, SCO v Novell / SCO v IBM both look to be winding down finally!
Another possiblity is that Pawlenty will be forced to sign the election certificate if Coleman concedes the election. While that may seem like a long shot at first glance, Norm might want to run for governor now that Pawlenty has said he won’t seek another term. If those are his plans, then the last thing he wants to do is to further piss off Minnesota voters by dragging this into the federal courts.
This is just speculation on my part, but I believe that Coleman has been busy doing polling to guage what his chances are to succeed Pawlenty. If the polls look promising, then as soon as the MSC rules against him, he will gratiously concede for he good of Minnesota and the nation. For now, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens.