Susan Boyle (Wikipedia)

Lawyers of all shapes and sizes crowded a Minnesota Supreme Court hearing today in the squabble over who will be the state’s second U.S. Senator: Norm Coleman or Al Franken. Both sides made oral arguments but, as the state’s sole senator, Amy Klobuchar, had warned there was no “Susan Boyle moment.”

Klobuchar’s comment on CNN Sunday — however sizeist toward the British singer or fat ladies generally — proved true today: It ain’t over yet. 

Even after slightly more than an hour of give-and-take between five Minnesota Supreme Court justices and the Senate contenders’ lawyers, no one involved gave any sure indication as to how the court would rule.

Coleman was present in the courtroom — as he was for much of the seven-week election contest trial, which took place in the same room before a specially formed panel of lower-court judges. His appeal of their decision — that Franken won the election by 312 votes — is what the Supreme Court is considering now.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Coleman expressed “hope” that the court would send the matter back to the election-contest judges with instructions to count more absentee ballots he contends should have been counted.

Franken attorney Marc Elias expressed “confidence” the court would rule his client’s way, upholding the result of the recount and election contest and clearing the way for an election certificate to be issued and Franken to take Coleman’s former seat in the Senate.

The matter of an election certificate — very much at issue due to Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s equivocal statements about whether he’ll issue one even after the state Supreme Court rules — wasn’t mentioned in court today.

Earlier this year, Franken tried and failed to persuade the same justices to order Pawlenty to issue him an election certificate, pending the legal resolution of the drawn-out election battle.

The high court — reduced from its full complement of seven justices due to recusals by two who served on the State Canvassing Board that oversaw last year’s Coleman-Franken recount — seemed to attack Coleman’s arguments more strenuously than Franken’s. But that might be expected, since it is Coleman’s lawsuit that is at issue.

And both sides’ attorneys cautioned afterward against reading much into the tone of questions.

Still to come: a report from the scene, with details that might not have been apparent from the live video feed.

Related:
MN Supreme Court hears Franken-Coleman contest