In addition to liberating Minnesota's political scene from purgatory, the MN Supremes may also have helped the rest of the nation figure out how to handle the mystery of Bush v. Gore

By Eric Black but really by Ned Foley

Rush Limbaugh: Minnesota's election system is like Iran's

By Eric Black

My analysis of the Supreme Court's Franken-Coleman ruling

Election law Prof. Rick Hasen of Election Law blog and Loyola Law School of L.A. has posted his quick reaction to the Minnesota Supreme Court ruling and the future of the case from here.

Hasen is one of several top national election law scholars who have been following the case closely. He has five excellent analysis points in this post, but those who don't click through, here's one in which he reiterates why he feels the U.S. Supreme Court won't want anything to do with this case:

"A Stay in the U.S. Supreme Court I think a stay is very unlikely. First, you've now had eight judges look at this case (the three judge court and 5 of the members of the State Supreme Court) made up of judges with varied party backgrounds and they agree: Coleman could not find enough problems with the way the election was run to make out a constitutional violation. (Coleman was just unlucky in this regard; it could have just as easily been Franken. The election was razor-thin, and Minnesota's procedures pretty good, so there was not much for Coleman's lawyers to work with.) So the conservatives' red flags will not be raised, as they were in Florida 2000. Second, as I've explained in my Slate and ACS pieces linked above, Coleman's arguments depend upon an expansive reading of Bush v. Gore that would essentially enmesh the courts in the political thicket every time there was a close election and some deviations in how local election administrators enforced state election rules. That would mean a lot of litigation, state election law centralization, or both. That's not going to be appealing to any of the Justices. Third, the Court still has not cited Bush v. Gore in any opinion---majority, dissenting, or concurring---since the case was decided. It is still the third rail, and I don't see that they'd want to touch it, especially given what else they've been doing recently in election law. So I think Coleman's chances are slim in the Supremes."