Minneapolis / St. Paul - City Pages - The Blotter - Coleman appeal: Pawlenty might judge the judges

MinnPost editor defends giving Kersten a puff piece

Metrodome bathroom sex couple stalked by PiPress

Lesnar's intestine was leaking into his stomach

Coleman appeal: Pawlenty might judge the judges

By Emily Kaiser in Franken vs. Coleman

Monday, Apr. 13 2009 @ 2:30PM

Photo by Jim Greenhill

In the latest drama surrounding the likely Norm Coleman appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court, Gov. Tim Pawlenty says he fancies himself a judge of the judges. During an interview today with Minnesota Public Radio's Midday, he said he might analyze the Supreme Court's decision before deciding if he would sign the election certificate prior to a possible U.S. Supreme Court appeal.

Since when did we determine that the third panel of judges and officials likely to rule in Al Franken's favor still has it wrong? And since when is Pawlenty smarter than Supreme Court justices?

Franken currently has a 312-vote lead over Coleman. The three-judge panel that just heard the case will likely determine that Franken won the most votes in the election, which will allow Coleman to file an appeal to the state Supreme Court.

More from MPR:

When asked if he would issue and sign a certificate if no court rulings prohibited one, Pawlenty said he didn't know. He said the three-judge panel still has to name the official winner, and the loser's appeals must play out in court.

"Beyond that, I also would want to look at what the courts did with the case in terms of leaving issues for potential appeal, the strength of those issues, how directly and effectively they addressed them," said Pawlenty. "I'm not saying that I'm going to, or not going to, issue the certificate at that point. I just want to make sure I have all the facts in front of me before I made a decision like that."

Listen to the full interview:

Pawlenty made a similar comment last week on MSNBC:

"We also want to have a chance to see what the case would look like at that point, in terms of how harshly or strongly the issues have been decided or dealt with by the Minnesota Supreme Court," Pawlenty said, adding, "I think the state court will do a good job and a fine job, but there are some equal protection issues that are federal equal protection issues. And again, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves, because I'm not sure one or the other parties is going to get to federal court... . I will evaluate it genuinely and seriously at that point, but it's almost, it's really quite unfair to say what would you do in advance of all of that."