Posted on 11/23/2004 10:29:18 AM PST by rhinohunter
A Jefferson County judge has disqualified the unofficial winner of a state senate seat in this month's general election. Republican Dana "Seum" Stephenson was found to be ineligible to run for the 37 District office because she had not lived in Kentucky long enough prior to her candidacy. The decision means Democrat Virginia Woodward effectively wins by default. Stephenson's campaign is promising an appeal.
(Excerpt) Read more at whas.com ...
But I don't think this will surprise any readers of this forum.
If she was not elgible to run then she was not elgible to win. Didn't someone advise her of the law before the race?
Exactly.
If she wasn't allowed to run, that means she wasn't allowed to run for the nomination, so therefore wouldn't have been Republican nominee..
They should hold a special election.
This should be decided by the legislator and whether they allow her to sit.
Dana Seum Stephenson should probably not have the seat. She did not meet the eligibility requirements.
However, this isn't the Miss America pageant. If you come in second place you don't automatically get the office "if the winner can not perform her duties"!
After the winner was ruled ineligble, the seat should be declared vacant and a special election take place.
The bad new? Virginia Woodward (think a state version of Nancy Pelosi) will probably win in a special election. This is a very Democrat district and Dana Seum Stephenson was one of the very few Republicans that could win in it.
Not fully sure on how to ping to all the Kentuckians, but thought you might be able to help me! : )
Half of this decision will probably actually stand. The Republican was not eligible to run. So, even despite the fact she got the most votes, she isn't eligible to serve (in my humble opinion). However, that doesn't mean the Democrat automatically gets the seat.
Just curious, what were the requirements and how badly did she not qualify?
I guess KY isn't progressive like NY where it's a one day requirement, ala Hillary.< humor on >
This judge is toast. The legislature should not swear anyone in.
Apparently, she was not advised by anyone (not even the rats), at least not publicly. The rats waited until the day of the election to challenge her residency.
Now if she is indeed ineligible to hold the office, then a special election should be held -- which would be the case if she had died on election day.
I still have hope though. The Kentucky Senate ran circles around the House rats and then-rat gov during the redistricting battles. I don't think they will roll over for a low-level Jefferson County circuit court judge.
Wait a second...Shouldn't these things be determined BEFORE the election by whosever job it is to do such things. We had a similar situation in San Diego for Mayor. A candidate illegally announced her candidacy two weeks before the election as a write-in candidate. Unfortunately, this election was between two primary candidates who did not get 50%. So the winner of the Mayoral race in San Diego won with 38% of the vote, but he couldn't win whenhe had 47% of the primary vote. Think that's stupid? When her candidacy after the election was questioned the judge basically said, TOUGH LUCK. This should have been sorted out before the election happened.
I'm so sick of people not doing their jobs. It's not her job to qualify herself. It's other people's. God knows there's enough time during the campaign process to find out she wasn't elegible. And believe me, the Dems knew this and were just waiting it out in case she won. That's BULLS**T. IMHO.
What requirements did Daschle not meet?
They didn't think she would win, most probable.
This is for a State Senate seat. The Kentucky Constitution requires State Senators to live within the district for the one year prior to the election and within the state for the six years prior to the election to be eligible. Dana Seum Stephenson lived in Kentucky most of her life, but moved across the Ohio River to Indiana (literally less than 10 miles away, I think) in 1997 (I believe) and moved back to Louisville in 2001. So, she only had 3 of the 6 years prior to the election necessary to be eligible.
I agree that the Dems were just holding that piece of information in their pocket and were going to pull it out if it looked like Virginia Woodward was going to lose (which is what happened)!
However, no, it is the candidate's responsibility to "qualify herself". She signed filing papers stating that she had read and met the eligibility requirements. Truth be known, she's probably guilty of perjury.
Stephenson's defense has been that she didn't know and relied on her father (Senate Republican Caucus Chair) to tell her she wasn't eligible if that was true. Note: Her father is the person who didn't pay taxes on a car because he said he shouldn't have to if he didn't drive it any more.
Is this the same RAT judge who declared Hunter Bates, Governor Fletcher's original runningmate, to be ineligible to run for Lt. Gov. because he supposedly wasn't a resident of KY while he was working in Senator McConnell's office in DC?
No it is not. This judge is from Louisville (Jefferson County). The one who declared Hunter Bates ineligible was from Oldham County.
Does this mean in a future case if the winner got 99 percent and the Libertarian got 1 percent that the Libertarian will be declared the winner?
That's the way the ruling reads, which I think is ridiculous. If the winner is ruled ineligible, a special election should be held.
Isn't it a shame New York doesn't have a similar rule for the U.S. Senate?
Let me ask you this: if the losing candidate got .1 percent and the winner got 99.9 percent would you feel the same way?
Yes it is. I think that is a rule that should be copied for federal elections as well. Just think, 1) We wouldn't have Hillary in the Senate and 2) we wouldn't have had the embarrassment of Alan Keyes' run for the Senate.
Did you know that you actually don't even have to live in the U.S. House district you run for? I tell you, if Don Young ever gives it up, I may run for Congress from Alaska (but FROM Kentucky! lol).
Section 32 of the Kentucky Constitution. "Six years next preceding"? What kind of wording is that?
Indeed. Ironically, it would be "judicial activism" if the judge, in fact, ordered a special election under these circumstances.
You do have to have residency in that state, though, and often states have the requirement that you have to live in that district. This is a bad requirement because it can allow a legislature to gerrymander a district to put a representative's house outside of his old district.
Phrased beautifully? No. Phrased correctly? Yes. If they had just said "six years preceding", it could have been taken to be any six years preceding. If that had been the case, Dana Seum Stephenson would have qualified because she did live most of her life in Kentucky. The legislature meant to convey that it was the exact six years before the election.
Personally, I would have preferred the phrase "the immediate six years preceding", but they didn't ask me to craft the law back when that was written.
No, not really. Because, by declaring the winner ineligible you have in essence created a vacant seat. The legislature did provide a course of action for vacancies.
You can't win anything by losing.
Damn. There goes my Alaska plan. lol I didn't know that part, just knew you didn't have to be in the district. Hmmm. Maybe I should run for eastern Kentucky while living in central. lol
Maybe she'll have met the residency requirement by the time a special election is held.
Just a note . . . the party didn't really choose her to run either. She just sort of up and filed from what I understand. This wasn't a top targeted seat (ironically, turns out we could have won it!). I think this is something Dana's father, Dan Seum, cooked up all on his own. Had the Republican Party of Kentucky been involved, I feel sure they would have checked out the credentials.
No, she won't meet eligibility requirements until 2007. She will be eligible the next time the seat comes up regularly scheduled in 2008, though.
Well, according to you they have created a vacant seat. But it sounds like Kentucky law has a specific law for dealing with this exact problem & it doesn't involve the seat becoming "officially" vacant.
So if the seat is not offically vacant, what Kentucky law says about vacant seats is not applicable.
That said, I do think the law on giving the seat to the 2nd place finisher is boneheaded.
But the law does call for a special election in the case of a legislative vacancy. This particular instance isn't addressed in Kentucky law, but my thinking is that if the winner is ruled ineligible, then the seat is vacant.
I stand behind my original assertion: You can't win a legislative election by losing.
According to the judges possibly interpretive ruling...
My understanding is that 6 year residency is the issue. However, nowhere have I seen specifics regarding WHEN this 6 years is required nor if the 6 years must be consecutive.
Do you know where a copy of the legislation regarding the specifics might be located
If true, the republican party should appoint someone to replace her. Isnt that what the democrats did when John Ashcroft lost to that dead guy?
From what I have gathered, Kentucky law does not specify anything about this situation. Dan Kelly, the Senate Republican Floor Leader and attorney, is asserting the same thing I am in that the seat is officially vacant. It was widely expected that this judge would rule this way. He is an active liberal, from my understanding. It is hypothesized that it will have a fairer hearing at the Court of Appeals.
Actually, the judge didn't follow the law. It is the legislature's responsibility to determine the eligibility of its members. I wouldn't be surprised if this were cooked up when the Dems realized she wouldn't have been eligible. They'd keep the information to themselves and wait until after the election to have a judge declare the winner to be the second-place person.
nevermind -see it now.
The legislature won't seat the "loser" no matter what this judge says.
actually, the statute only applies to men!
;)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.