If you can't steal it outright ....

try to do an end-run around the law ...

Franken asks Minn. court to put him in Senate now:

"GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Democratic Secretary of State Mark Ritchie have rejected Franken's demand for the certificate, which he would need under Senate rules to take the seat Coleman had to vacate early last month as the new Congress convened.

Franken lawyer Marc Elias told the court Thursday that citizens are being deprived of their right to have two senators as Congress decides critical questions. He suggested that Minnesota was obligated under the Constitution and federal statutes to have two senators in place when Congress convened early last month.

'The nation faces issues of war and peace, issues of economic crisis. ... For want of a vote, an economic stimulus package might be lost,' Elias said."

Okay, lets all explain this to Mr. Franken ...

Each state has 2 senators ... the house has a Democratic majority .... the chance of the stimulus package 'stalling' or being 'defeated' because we are missing a single senator in the seat is very very slim.

PLUS - if the state were obligated under Federal Law, then Gov. Pawlenty would have to assign/appoint an interm senator ... and the best one to appoint would actually be Coleman because he has stature and position within the Senate already ... as I have stated before, if Franken takes the seat he would have 0 position ... he would be the new kid on the block whose biggest job would be scraping the old bubble-gum from under the desks in the Senate chambers.

If anything what Franken will do is force Pawlenty to appoint someone temporarily into the seat ... maybe he should appoint Jesse -- hey, he wouldn't be worse than Franken! Actually he would probably be better ... after all, one of the first things he did when he got in office was cut back on most of the unnecessary spending and began to make some sense.