Al Versus Norm, Part 744

The Minnesota Supreme Court is moving along at a breathtaking pace to hear Norm Coleman's appeal...starting June 1.

The court adopted the proposed briefing timeline from the Coleman campaign, allowing them more time to formulate their arguments: Coleman's brief is to be submitted by next Thursday, April 30; Team Franken will submit its brief by May 11, and a reply brief from Coleman is to be submitted by May 15.

On top of that, oral arguments have been scheduled for June 1 -- a month and a week from today.

Team Franken had called for a much quicker schedule, on the grounds that greater speed was needed in order to seat a second U.S. Senator from Minnesota, and that Coleman had already had plenty of time to come up with his arguments. But the court didn't go for it.

Indeed, by any normal measure this timeline is itself a quick one for a state Supreme Court to be taking an appeal. But for the political world, this is not a normal case.

Considering the entire point of the exercise is to prevent Al Franken from being seated by whatever means necessary, you have to hand it to Coleman. He may be actually be able to drag this out until 2010, and this leaves the Dems permanently stuck at 58 Senators.