Phoenix Woman here, and while I really don’t have any news on the Franken-Coleman thing — nor will I, or anyone else really, until June 1 when the Minnesota Supreme Court hears the oral arguments in the appeal case — I believe I do have some insight into the oft-asked question “How can Minnesotans, who used to be known for their sane and level-headed liberalism, elect dorky Republicans like Norm Coleman, Tim Pawlenty and Michele Bachmann to public office?”

Here are a few fast facts on the fabulous folks fulfilling the functions on on our fine State Supreme Court.

Earlier today I mentioned that Al Franken’s legal team filed a motion to expedite. This morning, I found out from the live blog at The UpTake that Norm Coleman’s people have filed a motion to slow everything down: “Coleman’s attorney’s are proposing the MN Supreme Court set a schedule that puts oral arguments 11 days later than what Franken’s attorneys have proposed.”

Team Franken filed a motion around lunchtime yesterday with the Minnesota Supreme Court for an expedited case schedule for the appeal lodged on Monday by Norm Coleman’s people. And when they say “expedited”, they mean it: They call for the record of the Election Contest Court proceedings to be delivered to the MNSC by the close of business Wednesday (that’s today), with briefing to be completed (and oral arguments to start) by Monday, May 4 at the latest.

My visual pun on “dragging things out” (get it? nyuk nyuk nyuk) has drawn some fire in the belief that I was trying to imply that a) Norm was a cross-dresser and/or gay, and b) that being a cross-dresser and/or gay was somehow the absolute worst thing in the world to be. Before I had a chance to respond, longtime commenter Sara responded herself with her take on Norm’s past — and the possible reason why he couldn’t advance beyond being the mayor of Saint Paul as a Democrat.

I wish the Republicans’ chief backers would cough up tens of millions of dollars for Norm. I really do. Because coughing it up for something that is really starting to piss off even us normally-patient Minnesotans will not only NOT make Norm Coleman a senator again, it’s also just the perfect recipe for guaranteeing that Tim Pawlenty loses his bid to stay on as governor next year — which means that a Democrat gets to decide which of Minnesota’s congressional districts goes bye-bye after the 2010 census is done. (Hint: Michele Bachmann shouldn’t get too comfy.)

Earlier this week, MinnPost’s Eric Black was optimistic that Norm Coleman really wasn’t going to try to wring every last little bit of delay from the Senate contest endgame. But now Ben Ginsberg says the appeal may not be filed until next week.

Well, we got a ruling from the Election Contest Court today — and while it was a ruling, it wasn’t the one we’ve been waiting to see. Sixty-one Franken voters, represented by attorney Charles Nauen and hence collectively known as the Nauen voters, had filed suit in order to get their absentee ballots counted. Thirty-six of these voters had their ballots counted in the final vote count on Tuesday; the rest were not allowed to have their ballots counted. Meanwhile, Republican Party of Minnesota chair Ron Carey has inadvertently admitted what we all knew, that Al Franken is our elected representative.

The Election Contest Court (which may be seen in its full Peeped-out form here) yesterday opened up the last ballots to be counted in the 2008 Minnesota Senate election, and guess what? Al Franken increased his lead by 87 votes, from 225 to 312. The court recessed soon after the counting was finished, but its final ruling is expected soon per The UpTake’s Twitter: “Email from courts says final ruling in #mncontest will not come any later than 6 PM, and will not be on a weekend.”

As expected, Al Franken came away from the counting of the last group of absentee ballots as the winner of the count and of the 2008 election for United States Senator from the State of Minnesota. The three-judge Election Contest Court has recessed for the day without issuing a ruling, but one is expected soon.