Updating our ILB entry from Thanksgiving Day on Kentucky's own "District 46"-type controversy is this story today in the Louisville Courier Journal, headlined "Election dispute heads to Senate: Judge has ruled Democrat won." Some quotes from the lengthy story:
Dana Seum Stephenson will turn to the Republican-controlled state Senate in an effort to hold onto the 37th District seat she appeared to win in November.Posted by Marcia Oddi at December 3, 2004 06:26 AMBut with a court having awarded the seat to her Democratic opponent, Virginia Woodward, the state could be headed for a constitutional crisis, Stephenson's lawyer said yesterday.
"I don't know what happens," Jim Milliman said. "Frankly, I think that the Supreme Court will do what courts have done in other states and say this isn't for the court to decide." * * *
Stephenson won the election by 1,022 votes, but Jefferson Circuit Judge Barry Willett ruled last week that she did not meet the residency requirement in the Kentucky Constitution, making Woodward the "de facto" winner of the election.
The constitution requires state senators to be residents of Kentucky for six years before their election.
The race was thrown into question the day before the election when Woodward filed suit, asking a judge to disqualify Stephenson, who has lived in Southern Indiana for four of the past six years. * * *
Woodward also said the Senate should rise above politics and "decide this question based on what does the law say and what does the constitution say."
There is some precedent indicating residency isn't a hard and fast rule. In 1987 the Democratic House seated Republican Mae Hoover even though she wasn't a legal resident of the district she was elected to represent. A House committee found that the residency requirement was intended to ensure that officials have "a familiarity with the people and the area they represent" and that Hoover was familiar with the area.
Milliman said he planned to throw the case to the state Senate to decide because of a constitutional provision that gives houses of the General Assembly authority to "judge of the qualifications, elections and returns of its members."