Who was who in the endless Franken-Coleman court battle? Check out our slideshow of all the key figures.
And where does this go from here? Is it over? We’ll know a lot more by the end of the day. But here’s what we can tell you as of this moment. The Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision was telegraphed well in advance. But the unanimous ruling probably shuts down whatever hope Coleman had, which was minimal, to keep dragging this out. Coleman can try to appeal this decision into the federal courts. But Bush v. Gore notwithstanding, it seems very hard to see where the Feds would want to intervene in a case where a state Supreme Court has issued a unanimous ruling. Probably even more unlikely that a federal judge would try to prevent Gov. Pawlenty from issuing the election certificate which Franken has to present to the senate to get his seat.
More likely, though I’d say still a longshot, is that Senate Republicans will try to block Franken’s seating. Over recent months, Republicans have made noises about trying to block seating Franken. A lot of that was probably puffing for partisans. But earlier on there was some chance Franken could get certification in advance of the Supreme Court ruling. Now, though, it’s gone through every last step of the process in Minnesota. And the Court ruled unanimously. So it’s really hard for me to imagine they’re going to go there. But I’ve been wrong on this front before. So if there’s any real obstacle remaining, it’s the GOP senate caucus.
Late Update: Under Minnesota appellate procedure, as I understand it, the Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t become final for 10 days. That’s not, as MSNBC suggested a few minutes ago, a window in which to appeal to the federal courts for intervention. In fact, I’m not sure Coleman could appeal to federal courts until he asked for the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision within that 10-day window (a formality because the Supreme Court is unlikely to reconsider its own unanimous decision). But the opinion itself makes no mention of any 10 days except a reference to the period for reconsideration and doesn’t establish any timeline for federal appeal (nor could it).–DK
