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Thursday, December 22, 2005

Law - Election law standoff in Kentucky: KY Supreme Court rules

The Louisville Courier Journal websiter posted this AP report by Mark Chellgren late this morning that the Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled in the year-long Kentucky legislative seating dispute. Some quotes:

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Republican Dana Seum Stephenson cannot serve in the state Senate because she did not meet residency requirements and was properly challenged before the November 2004 election, a divided Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

But Democrat Virginia Woodward also cannot serve because she did not receive the most votes, the court added.

The result leaves the 37th District Senate seat in Jefferson County vacant, as it has effectively been for a year. The court did not recommend a solution, but the likely outcome will be a special election to fill the vacancy. An election could be set by Gov. Ernie Fletcher or, if nothing is done before the General Assembly convenes on Jan. 3, the date would be set by Senate President David Williams. * * *

While Senate Republicans, led by Williams, declared that the case was a matter of constitutional separation of powers between the legislature and the courts, Justice Martin Johnstone, who wrote the majority ruling, said it boiled down to a simple matter of an election challenge.

The day before the election, Woodward filed suit in Jefferson County Circuit Court, alleging Stephenson had not been a resident of Kentucky for the six years, as the Constitution requires. In balloting the next day, Stephenson received more votes than Woodward.

But during a later court hearing, it was shown Stephenson had lived in Indiana from 1997 to 2001, voted there, owned a house, had a driver's license and paid in-state tuition to attend school while earning a graduate degree, though she taught school and owned another house in Jefferson County. The judge said she was therefore not a legal candidate and ordered that her votes not be counted.

Johnstone said Kentucky law allows a challenge to someone's legal qualifications for office to be filed up until the election. Woodward met that deadline and the courts retained jurisdiction, the court said.

Rather than appeal the court decision, Stephenson went to the Senate, where her fellow Republicans voted to allow her to serve. Williams and his colleagues argued that only the Senate is allowed to determine its makeup. Williams even declared 20 members of the Senate could vote to admit a 23-year-old, even though the Constitution requires senators to be 30. "And no court in the land would overturn it," Williams said.

At least three different courts have now effectively overturned it.

For background see this Oct. 27th ILB entry, and this Nov. 16th followup.

[More] Here is a link to the 100-page opinion - it is 6.8 MB and very slow, unfortunately.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 22, 2005 01:00 PM
Posted to General Law Related