Republicans in the Minnesota House have included an amendment to the health and human services omnibus bill that would ban the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in the state of Minnesota because legislators believe it to be in violation of the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. On Wednesday night, Republicans argued that “Obamacare” would “eviscerate” state sovereignty, while DFLers made comparisons to the Confederacy and the arguments used by secessionists during the Civil War. One legislator even proposed changing the state song to “Dixie.”

The amendment was offered by Rep. Glenn Gruenhagen, R-Glencoe. “This amendment is the Freedom of Choice in Health Act,” he said. “This bill attempts to say that Minnesota is not going to cooperate with imposing a penalty to purchase a particular product without a penalty being imposed.”

In a bid to keep the discussion civil, Gruenhagen urged the Republicans in the body to refrain from using “Obamacare.” “As we discuss this, there are those in the chamber who are offended by the use of the term ‘Obamacare.’ Please use Affordable Care Act, or as I sometimes refer to it, the Unaffordable Care Act.”

But few listened to Gruenhagen’s suggestion.

Rep. Kathy Lohmer, R-Lake Elmo, said, “Republicans have opposed ‘Obamacare’ for the simple reason it will destroy jobs. This [amendment] will allow doctors the freedom to practice the way they see fit.”

Rep. Doug Wardlow, R-Eagan, said the Affordable Care Act would “destroy the fabric of our system.”

“The Affordable… whatever it’s called, is a terrible piece of legislation that will eviscerate the private health insurance industry in America… It will push us past a tipping point where the federal government will come to usurp any meaningful role for state governments in our dual sovereignty system,” he said. “That’s why this amendment is so very important.”

Later he said, “For decades our country has been walking down a road to a cliff. What is the cliff? The cliff is the end of state sovereignty. The cliff is turning the 9th and 10th amendments into meaningless recitation that are ignored wholly.”

He added, “This is unconstitutional and the Supreme Court will find it unconstitutional, but we don’t need to wait for the Supreme Court to tell us what we know is true.”

But, the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is very much an undecided issue. Republicans on the House floor offered court decisions in Florida and Virginia as evidence to back their claims about the unconstitutional nature of “Obamacare,” but did not mention the two cases that did rule it constitutional: Thomas More Law Center v. Obama and Liberty University v. Geithner.

DFLers made that point clear at several moments in the floor debate, but their strategy seemed to be to tie the ban on the Affordable Care Act to the 10th Amendment battles waged during the Civil War and Civil Rights Eras.

Rep. Steve Simon, DFL-St. Louis Park, compared the amendment offered by Gruenhagen to those arguments used by the South during those periods of American history.

“Reasonable people can disagree with the Affordable Care Act,” he said. “But what this amendment proposes is crazy, I just have to tell you.”

“We have a tradition in this country that we don’t just opt out of laws that we think are unconstitutional,” he added. “We had this debate in the 1860s with the Civil War. We had it in 1960s with civil rights.”

Simon said he didn’t want to assert that Republicans were arguing those same issues — that of slavery and discrimination — but that the 10th Amendment argument had been used in those cases as well.

“Everyone here wants equality. I don’t want to criticize anyone’s motives,” he said. “But this is procedurally indistinguishable from the arguments made by southern segregationists.”

“For us on any issue to simply opt our of laws we don’t like, it is an act of rebellion on par with Fort Sumter in the Civil War. To say we are going to essentially break away from the union on this issue I think is shortsighted. It makes us look, as a state, backward and ridiculous.”

Rep. Steve Gottwalt, R-St. Cloud, disagreed with that sentiment. “To call it crazy, Rep. Simon, is to argue that the U.S. Constitution and Minnesota Constitution are are in fact crazy, ridiculous or silly. That, to me, is frankly offensive,” he said. “Members we are not talking about seceding from the union.”

But it was Golden Valley Democrat Rep. Ryan Winkler who hammered home the comparison to Southern segregationists.

“Using the 10th Amendment is really a bogus argument. And it’s obviously very passionately followed by certain members of activist organizations in the United States today, but it doesn’t change the fact that this is legal hogwash.”

He said he had planned to offer an amendment to the amendment that “would make the official state song of Minnesota ‘Dixie,’ and take down that portrait of Abraham Lincoln and replace it with Jefferson Davis.”

He added, “That’s what this amendment stands for, and it has no place in this building.”

The amendment passed by 71 ayes to 60 nays and is included in the health and human services omnibus bill that also passed by a similar margin.

On Tuesday, Minnesota Senators debated whether taxpayer funds should be used to pay for private religious school tuition as part of an omnibus tax bill. Republicans hope the proposal, which is modeled after one in Arizona and has been dubbed a “backdoor voucher” system by some, will pass constitutional muster. The U.S. Supreme Court released a decision on Arizona’s system on Monday that could boost state Republicans’ hopes, but DFLers say regardless of the measure’s constitutionality it represents the GOP’s ultimate goal of “dismantling” public education altogether.

Sen. Katie Sieben, DFL-Newport, introduced an amendment to the tax bill that would delete a program that allows large tax breaks for low-income families to be used for private school tuition.

“At a time that our school districts are cutting back, we need put our money into our public schools instead of putting taxpayer money into private and religious schools,” she said. (The GOP’s education budget cuts education funding in Minneapolis publich schools by $415 per student, while per-student funds would to decrease by $395 in St. Paul and $132 in Duluth.)

The program would cost $10.7 million in the next biennium. “We should be spending these precious taxpayer dollars on our public schools,” she added.

Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove, said, “I would hope that you would give our poorer families an opportunity to climb out [of poverty] and that you resist voting for the Sieben amendment.”

As the Minnesota Independent reported when a voucher bill was first introduced this session, taxpayer funding for religious schools in Minnesota is expressly prohibited in the Minnesota Constitution, even if the federal government has allowed it in some circumstances.

The new proposal in the tax bill takes out the voucher system and creates a tax credit.

Currently, Minnesota law allows for families to take a tax break for certain private school expenses — except for tuition. And that stood up to a Minnesota Supreme Court challenge in the mid-1990s. The current bill would change that tax break to included tuition as well as other related expenses, an issue the court has not yet taken up. But the bill stops short of a voucher system which would make direct payments to private schools.

Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, said that would present a problem. “First of all, it’s a substantial expansion of the taxpayer subsidy for private schools. Tuition is the motherload of costs,” he said, adding that many taxpayers would have a problem subsidizing another taxpayer’s decision to put their children in private schools.

“There’s a second consideration here,” said Latz. “This would constitute taxpayer funding for specific religious purposes because the vast majority of private schools are religious in nature.”

Latz said that current law allows a tax break for non-tuition expenses like textbooks or supplies because they don’t go to religious instruction. The law specifies that those expenses pay for school needs that are similar to the coursework that would be found in a public school.

Using tax credits to pay tuition at a religious school, Latz said, “That’s taxpayer dollars specifically advancing religion.”

Sen. Benjamin Kruse, R-Brooklyn Park, disagreed with Latz’s constitutional concerns.

“To the possible constitutional agreement here, we just saw yesterday in Arizona, the Supreme Court upheld a very, very similar piece of legislation so I think we are heading in the right direction with this,” he said.

That case at the Supreme Court was decided on Monday in a split 5-4 decision. The court ruled that taxpayers have no legal recourse when tax credits, as opposed to vouchers, are used to fund religious schools. Separation of church and state watchdog groups have called the tax credit strategy a “backdoor voucher program.”

“If government officials set up a program where contributions to these religious institutions are offset by a 100 percent tax credit, a taxpayer has no right to challenge that funding in court, despite the fact that it has the same result: tax dollars are going to fund religion,” Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said of the decision.

As Kruse noted, the Minnesota proposal is based on the Arizona system.

He said that the program should be passed into law. “We should keep that choice, keep those dollars in the hands of the most impoverished. It is so important to help these children get a better education, have a fighting chance to better their lives.”

He added, “These dollars are not going to the schools, these dollars are going to the families. This is a tax credit; it is not a voucher.”

It was Sen. Patricia Torres Ray, DFL-Minneapolis, who took the Republicans to the mat over education funding and the claims — like that of Sen. Kruse — that the tax credit program was to help low-income Minnesotans.

“What the majority members are telling us right now, that this is about low-income children, about minority children, I am just shocked to hear this,” she said. “I want to remind you that we cut all funding for the Indian Child Welfare Act, which is given to the lowest income Indian children in Minnesota. We also canceled all of the funding for youth summer programs in the lowest income communities in Minnesota. We cut compensatory funding for the three largest districts in the state of Minnesota where we have the highest concentration of poverty. We also cut integration which allows predominately low income children to attend school outside Minneapolis and St. Paul districts. We also cut all the funding for caregiver support that provides funding for grandparents of children who are placed in out of home placement.”

She continued, “All of this funding, members, was for poor children and you just cut this funding, so do not come to us today that you want to provide public funding for private schools to support low income children, children of color because that is just not true.”

Finally, she said, “What you are doing is taking public dollars to go to private schools because you want to dismantle public education. That’s what you want to do. Just don’t lie about it.”

Torres Ray’s statement drew protests from Republicans who complained to Senate President Michelle Fischbach that Torres Ray was out of line. Fischbach offered a tepid admonishment before moving on with the vote on the amendment, which failed largely along party lines.

The Senate then passed the omnibus tax bill with the private school tax credit attached, also along party lines.

Following last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, Minnesota Democrats are proposing a constitutional amendment to define an individual as a “natural person.” The 2010 ruling gave corporations certain rights as “persons” and allowed them to engage in new levels of political activity. Sen. Scott Dibble of Minneapolis said the DFL bill is aimed at curtailing the idea that corporate entities have the same rights as human beings.

The bill, SF683/HF914, puts forward a simple question to voters: “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to define ‘person’ to mean natural person?”

“Corporations have been allowed to funnel vast sums of money into elections which distorts our elections and really amounts to buying elections,” Dibble told the Minnesota Independent. “No other entity could begin to match the amount of money that corporations are capable of spending.”

Sen. Scott Dibble

He pointed to Justice Paul Stevens’ dissent in the Citizens United case that said allowing corporations to intervene in elections will corrupt self-governance.

“The Court’s opinion is… a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding,” wrote Stevens, “and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.”

But, Dibble said, the bill isn’t only about elections. Further recognition of corporations as persons could give them rights that conflict with actual people in many areas of law, he said. For example, the Supreme Court is currently weighing a lawsuit filed by AT&T which is asserting that corporations have a right to personal privacy under the legal concept of corporate personhood.

“Corporations are an artificial construct,” Dibble said. “They shouldn’t be able to trump actual living human beings’ rights.”

The constitutional amendment being offered would hit the ballot in 2012 if it passes the legislature (amendment bills don’t go through the governor). Dibble said he and House author Rep. Bill Hilty of Finlayson will press for committee hearings. Dibble expressed some skepticism that the bill would pass, but added that some in the Tea Party have been sharply critical of the Citizens United decision. He wonders whether Tea Party-backed Republicans in the legislature find common cause with the DFL on corporate personhood.

Currently the bill is sponsored solely by DFLers.

In the Senate: Dibble along with Tony Lourey of Kerrick, John Marty of Roseville, Sandy Pappas of St. Paul and Tom Bakk of Cook.

In the House: Hilty along with Carlos Mariani of St. Paul, Karen Clark of Minneapolis, Andrew Falk of Murdock, Tim Mahoney of St. Paul, Linda Slocum of Richfield, Michael Nelson of Brooklyn Park, Alice Hausman of St. Paul, Tom Anzelc of Balsam Township, Tina Liebling of Rochester, Jean Wagenius of Minneapolis, Lyle Koenen of Clara City, Jeff Hayden of Minneapolis, Kathy Brynaert of Mankato, Phyllis Kahn of Minneapolis, Sheldon Johnson of St. Paul, Frank Hornstein of Minneapolis, Erin Murphy of St. Paul, John Persell of Bemidji, Rick Hansen of South St. Paul, and Carolyn Laine of Columbia Heights.

Rep. Keith Ellison is among 74 members of Congress who called  on United States Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas Friday to recuse himself from hearing any cases that have to do with health care reform after revelations that Thomas’ wife makes a living from organizations that oppose the implementation of health care reform.

Virginia Thomas received nearly $700,000 from the Heritage Foundation between 2003 and 2007 — and that income was not disclosed on Justice Thomas’ financial disclosure forms as required by law. The Heritage Foundation opposes health care reform, and the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act is likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court. In addition, Virginia Thomas recently started a lobbying firm and will serve as an “ambassador to the Tea Party movement.”

In their letter, the House members, all Democrats, also noted that Virginia Thomas and her Liberty Central stood to benefit from the Citizens United decision in 2010 in which Justice Thomas sided with corporations making independent political expenditures.

The House members are asking Justice Thomas to recuse himself if the high court hears a case questioning the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.

Here’s the letter:

Dear Justice Thomas:

As an Associate Justice, you are entrusted with the responsibility to exercise the highest degree of discretion and impartiality when deciding a case. As Members of Congress, we were surprised by recent revelations of your financial ties to leading organizations dedicated to lobbying against the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. We write today to respectfully ask that you maintain the integrity of this court and recuse yourself from any deliberations on the constitutionality of this act.

The appearance of a conflict of interest merits recusal under federal law. From what we have already seen, the line between your impartiality and you and your wife’s financial stake in the overturn of health care reform is blurred. Your spouse is advertising herself as a lobbyist who has “experience and connections” and appeals to clients who want a particular decision – they want to overturn health care reform. Moreover, your failure to disclose Ginny Thomas’s receipt of $686,589 from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent opponent of health care reform, between 2003 and 2007 has raised great concern.

This is not the first case where your impartiality was in question. As Common Cause points out, you “participated in secretive political strategy sessions, perhaps while the case was pending, with corporate leaders whose political aims were advanced by the [5-4] decision” on the Citizens United case. Your spouse also received an undisclosed salary paid for by undisclosed donors as CEO of Liberty Central, a 501(c)(4) organization that stood to benefit from the decision and played an active role in the 2010 elections.

Given these facts, there is a strong conflict between the Thomas household’s financial gain through your spouse’s activities and your role as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. We urge you to recuse yourself from this case. If the US Supreme Court’s decision is to be viewed as legitimate by the American people, this is the only correct path.

We appreciate your thoughtful consideration of this request.

Sincerely,

Reps. Anna G. Eshoo, Anthony D. Weiner, Al Green, E.B. Johnson, Wm. Lacy Clay, Russ Carnahan, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Karen Bass, Richard Neal, Peter Welch, Judy Chu, John Yarmuth, Betty Sutton, Ed Perlmutter, Gerald Connolly, Dennis Kucinich, Kendrick Meeks, Allyson Schwartz, Lloyd Doggett, Gwen Moore, Jared Polis, Maxine Waters, Donald Payne, Bobby Rush, Steve Cohen, Joseph Crowley, Eliot Engel, David Cicilline, Susan Davis, Albio Sires, Mike Doyle, Louise Slaughter, Jim McDermott, Nydia Velazquez, John Garamendi, André Carson, Michael Capuano, Shelley Berkley, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Tim Bishop, Barbara Lee, Joe Courtney, Rosa DeLauro, John Conyers, John Larson, George Miller, Leonard Boswell, Donna Edwards, Lois Capps, Xavier Becerra, Theodore Deutch, Steve Israel, Bill Owens, Laura Richardson, Clarke, Mazie Hirono, Gary Ackerman, Keith Ellison, Raul Grijalva, Chris Murphy, Lynn Woolsey, Peter DeFazio, Jesse Jackson Jr, Sylvester Reyes, Carolyn Maloney, Robert Andrews, Bill Pascrell, Bob Filner, Paul Tonko, Marcia Fudge, Maurice Hinchey, Mike Honda, Frank Pallone, Pete Stark

Source: Wikipedia

Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson has added Minnesota’s support to a lawsuit by the state of Michigan against the state of Illinois to force the closure of a canal connecting the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan. Unless the canal is closed, Asian carp will make their way into the Great Lakes and eventually Minnesota inland lakes, rivers and stream. The lawsuit will be heard by the U.S. States Supreme Court on Thursday.

“If they invade the Great Lakes, they will have access to the rivers and tributaries that feed into the Great Lakes, thereby threatening inland waters,” Swanson said in a brief to the high court. “This would be extremely destructive to Minnesota’s economy and way of life, where inland fishing is an important recreational and economic pursuit. Indeed, Minnesota is known as ‘The Land of 10,000 Lakes,’ and the recreational fishing in Minnesota alone is a $2.725 billion per year industry.”

The carp are invasive and reproduce rapidly, crowding out native fish. They also startle easily and have injured boaters when they jump out of the water.

Illinois constructed an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to keep the fish out of Lake Michigan, but in November researchers found evidence of the fish above the barrier. That leaves only one lock and dam between the carp and the lake. Two weeks ago, Michigan filed suit to close that lock.

But business interests are fighting back. The Illinois Chamber of Commerce said that the closure of the canal will mean $500 million in expenses as grains, coal and petroleum have to be shipped on highways instead of the cheaper barges.

“There’s no monetary comparison to an ecosystem,” Swanson told the Christian Science Monitor. “They’re an American treasure. Once you contaminate them with Asian carp, that treasure is jeopardized and can’t be changed. You can’t pay Michigan or Ohio or Minnesota enough money to ruin the Great Lakes.”

Here’s a video of the carp jumping out of the water and onto boaters:

Whose dulcet tones stirred Minnesota’s senior senator from her sleep? It was probably Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), but it could just as well have been been Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.).

Rather than hit the snooze button or throw the clock across the room, Klobuchar reported to work, where she led an hour’s worth of speeches in support of Sotomayor from Democratic women senators: Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Kirsten Gillebrand of New York, and Patty Murray of Washington State.

Klobuchar served as emcee, introducing each speaker, providing segues and delivering her own impassioned remarks on behalf of Sotomayor. Among several letters of support she read was one from former FBI director (and judge) Louis Freeh, who cited the example of a Minnesota-born former U.S. Supreme Court justice, Edward Devitt.

Klobuchar repeated parts of her statement during the Judiciary Committee hearings on the Sotomayor nomination last week, including her tale of meeting an airport worker at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who asserted Sotomayor “always lets her feeling get in the way of the law.”

With reference to the travails of female trailblazers of jurisprudence such as Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Klobuchar said, “We’ve come a long way.”

With reference to senators who have said they’ll oppose Sotomayor, Klobuchar added, “I hope my colleagues will also come a long way.”

Update: Here are video clips from Klobuchar’s remarks:

OpenSecrets.org found that Sotomayor hasn’t made a political donation since joining the federal bench in 1992, while others on Obama’s shortlist — especially those who aren’t judges — made lots of them.

Elena Kagan, for example, gave Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign the maximum allowed: $4,600. She was dean of Harvard Law School before Obama appointed her U.S. Solicitor General this year.

Diane Wood made $1,250 in political donations during the 1992 election cycle, the lion’s share going to Bill Clinton, who appointed her to the federal Court of Appeals in 1995. Wood’s current husband has given $5,000 in the past six years, almost half of that to Obama.

Records of political giving haunt several of Minnesota’s sitting high-court justices. Three of the five Minnesota Supreme Court justices who will hear oral arguments in Coleman v. Franken on Monday have made donations to current or past candidates for the seat that’s in dispute. All gave before they were named to the high court.

Two are from past election cycles: Justice Helen Meyer gave to the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone’s 2002 re-election campaign, and Justice Lori Gildea donated to Coleman’s unsuccessful 1998 run for governor as a Republican.

Justice Christopher Dietzen gave $250 to the “Coleman for Senator 08” campaign committee in 2004,  11 months before Gov. Tim Pawlenty appointed him to the state Supreme Court.

None of the three has recused himself or herself from judging Coleman’s appeal of the election contest court ruling that showed Franken won the U.S. Senate race by 312 votes.

Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and Associate Justice G. Barry Anderson have not participated in any of the high court’s proceedings or deliberations related to the Senate election. They served on the State Canvassing Board late last year, which found that Franken had won the statewide hand recount of 2.9 million ballots cast.

Photo: Jill Brady/The Vigil

Minnesotan Coleen Rowley has emerged in the last few days as a potential “off-the-grid” nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. Rowley’s addition to unofficial SCOTUS “long lists” (as opposed to shortlists) comes as U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar downplays chatter that she might be tapped to replace retiring Justice David Souter.  

Interest in Rowley seems to have originated with Nadine Strossen, a professor at New York Law School and former longtime president of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Strossen was among a dozen experts on constitutional law and the Supreme Court consulted by the National Law Journal for an article on possible nominees that appeared online Tuesday.

She’s first quoted as saying that President Obama should not name a white man: “It would create a negative implication — there are no extraordinary, well-qualified women or underrepresented minorities available.”

Two candidates she proposes also teach law: her New York Law School colleague Annette Gordon-Reed and Stephen Carter of Yale Law School.

Then, as paraphrased by reporter Marcia Coyle, Strossen adds:

And, she asked, why not someone whose understanding of and commitment to the law have been tested in the most difficult circumstances, such as FBI whistleblower and lawyer Coleen Rowley and former U.S. Navy Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift, who represented Guantánamo detainee Salim Hamdan?

Rowley clearly appeals to Strossen on her merits — but it may not hurt her cause that Strossen hails from Minnesota. (After earning undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard University, Strossen returned to her home state to clerk at the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1975 and 1976 and was in private practice in Minneapolis from 1976 to ’78.)

On Wednesday, the conservative National Journal added Rowley, along with others from Coyle’s article, to its long list, which now numbers 41 names, from the obscure to such agreed-upon frontrunners as Judge Diane Wood, Elana Kagan and Sonya Sotomayor.

Rowley laughed off the SCOTUS speculation in an email to the Minnesota Independent:

A bit of comic relief?  Long shot would be an understatement!

I did consider, for a couple weeks, trying for head of the Office of Special Counsel just because it has an awful history of being totally ineffective and there are a lot of government whistleblowers who were hoping for someone to reform OSC which would require someone with independence from the agencies and therefore from outside the beltway.  But for a lot of reasons, I declined to pursue it. I would have been an extremely long shot for that position too although OSC is apparently the smallest government agency that exists — it’s only like 100 attorneys or something like that.

I don’t know anyone in the Obama Administration except one of his press people, Dan Burton, who is a former DCCC [Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee] press guy and, interestingly enough, a former congressional staffer for Bill Luther when Luther was [Minnesota] CD 2 Congressman. Burton happened to be in Minnesota for a wedding when I announced my campaign for congress in July 2005 and he came for the event. I’ve only exchanged one short e-mail with him in the last two years. Interestingly enough, a year or so before the election in 2008, Burton saw one of my HuffPosts against torture and said to keep up the good work or something like that.

Photo: Conservapedia

Klobuchar, a former Hennepin County attorney, doesn’t appear on the National Journal list, but she has been received high-profile mentions elsewhere.

Her status as a potential nominee was the first topic of conversation when she appeared for an hour Wednesday on Minnesota Public Radio’s “Midday” program.

Host Gary Eichten asked whether she might soon don judicial robes instead of the two hats she currently wears as Minnesota’s junior and senior U.S. Senator while the Norm Coleman/Al Franken election contest drags on. Klobuchar’s reply:

I would say this: Minnesota has only one senator and it needs at least one senator. So it’s nice to have my name being sort of bantered [sic] about, but I don’t think that that’s in the cards right now. I did talk to the president this week. He called me and talked to me a little bit about, just in general, the Supreme Court nominee and what I think was important in that nominee. We had a very good discussion and I know he’s very interested in getting this through as soon as possible. … Let’s just say we’re focused on moving forward and I’m Minnesota’s Senator. And that’s it.

If there was more to that conversation than Obama is letting on, Klobuchar succeeded at hiding it better than the brazen Christine Arguello, a federal judge in Denver, or the cagey Judge Wood.

Klobuchar went on to say that being a woman shouldn’t be a litmus test for Obama’s choice in a nominee — at least not for this, his first appointment to the Supreme Court.

Here is the audio of Klobuchar on MPR (Supreme Court discussion begins at the 3:08 mark):

“We are extremely pleased with the court’s final opinion,” Elias told reporters. “Al Franken won this election fair and square. Al Franken won this election because more Minnesotans voted for him than for Norm Coleman or for any other candidate.”

Elias (pictured) briefed reporters just two hours after his counterpart for the Coleman camp, Ben Ginsberg, vowed to appeal the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court. The Republican’s legal team has also hinted that they may try to take the case into the federal courts as well. But Elias pooh-poohed their chances at success.

“It’s extremely unlikely that the U.S. Supreme Court would have reason to take this case,” Elias said, noting that the nation’s top court has only heard two election cases in recent memory. “If former Sen. Coleman chooses to appeal to the Minnesota Supreme Court, I think that will be the end of the road for him.”

Elias was hesitant to give an estimate of when the contest will likely conclude, but he expressed hope that the state Supreme Court will handle any appeal in an expedited manner. “Based on past history I think it will move relatively quickly,” he said. “I think the estimates that are in weeks are more accurate than the estimates that are in months.”