Franken's Lawyer Tells BuzzFlash It'll Soon Be Over. Meanwhile, "Seat the Senator" Contestants Still Wait

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White

Though the rest of the nation may have forgotten by now, the legal battle over just who exactly will represent Minnesota alongside Amy Klobuchar in the U.S. Senate rages on in court, some two months after the recount wrapped up.

Last Friday, the Minnesota Supreme Court turned down Franken's request for a certificate of election, which would have made it easier for the Senate to seat him. The court said the certificate must be issued only after "a court of proper jurisdiction" makes its final ruling. However, as Eric Black of MinnPost points out, the disappointment may prove to be a boon for Franken.

Though they did not explicitly say it, the judges seemed to have tipped their collective hand as to what they might decide if Coleman decides to take his appeal to federal court. They seem to be saying that they would require the Minnesota secretary of state to issue the election certificate as soon as the Minnesota Supreme Court case wraps up, and not wait for the federal appeals process to play out.

Marc Elias, Franken's lead attorney, agrees. In a telephone interview with BuzzFlash, he said it only "makes sense" that a state court have the last word on state election law.

Bottom line?

"I think this will be over soon," Elias said.

Whew. Of course, BuzzFlash readers are looking for something a little more specific than that. At the end of February, we closed our "Seat the Senator" contest, which solicited predictions of when Franken will actually be seated.

The forecast varies widely (though the Ides of March and April Fool's Day were oddly popular) and our readers are optimistic overall. Franken himself was not available to talk to us, but he has recently made his own prediction that he will be seated before the Summer Solstice, or June 21.

It's clear to just about everyone who will win this one. And though Coleman and his lawyers have tried to shed doubt on the manner in which Franken will assume his seat, saying there's no way the public could have faith in the process, observers have proclaimed the recount as pretty clean.

And no matter what conservatives say about the importance of counting every vote, there's no doubt that Coleman's fight has been more about saving his seat than electoral fairness. There are clear signals from Coleman that the Republican Party is pushing him to pursue the legal process for as long as possible to keep the Democrats from amassing any more power than they already have in the U.S. Senate.

The GOP has already rewarded Coleman for his vigilance with a new job. Furthermore, on Friday Coleman's legal spokesperson drew a straight line from St. Paul to D.C. in his reaction to the Minnesota Supreme Court decision on the election certificate:

"This wise ruling will ensure that Harry Reid, Al Franken and Chuck Schumer cannot short-circuit Minnesota law in their partisan power play."

Coleman's supporters on the national level have been more concerned with counting votes in the U.S. Senate than with counting absentee ballots in Minnesota, and that concern shows up in Coleman‘s legal arguments.

In the initial recount battle when Coleman was still ahead, his lawyers were resistant to including every ballot. Later, when he fell behind Franken, Coleman tried to get ballots reexamined in districts that favored him while leaving out places where he didn't get a large proportion of the vote.

"They certainly fought tooth and nail" during the state canvassing board hearings, Elias said. "It is ironic that they have now seemingly switched sides."

At this point Coleman and his supporters are crying foul, insisting that not every vote was counted and calling for a do-over. It's pretty clear that Coleman would lose a re-vote as well, since Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley surely stripped more votes from Franken's column in the general election than from Coleman's. But that doesn't really matter, because there won't be a do-over.

In a way that's too bad, because a special election would be more entertaining than watching the protracted court battle (don't take my word, you can watch the mind-numbing proceedings online here). When I asked Elias what advice he had for fed-up Minnesotans, traditionally known as a down-to-earth people with little patience for this type of silliness, he had this to offer:

"Keep holding on... It's coming to an orderly conclusion."

Orderly? Well, that'd be a welcome first.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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