Posted on 01/04/2006 9:07:15 AM PST by RonPaulLives
Stephenson resigns disputed seat in Senate
Special election will fill seat in 37th
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) -- Dana Seum Stephenson officially resigned her 37th District Senate seat Tuesday. The Republican cannot serve in the state Senate.
The state Supreme Court ruled December 22 she did not meet residency requirements and was properly challenged before the November 2004 election.
Her opponent, Democrat Virginia Woodward, also cannot serve because she did not receive the most votes.
In a 1½-page letter, Stephenson said the legal impasse would hamper the legislative process if she didn't resign. She criticized the courts and the media, "who have tried to vilify my character."
"In keeping with what I feel is best for the people of my district, it is my duty to step down," she wrote, adding that she leaves with her integrity intact.
Senate President David Williams says he will call for a special election as soon as the possibility ends for Stephenson's Democratic opponent, Virginia Woodward, to appeal a Supreme Court ruling in the case that said neither Woodward nor Stephenson could be seated.
Stephenson also told the media that "the party has chosen" Louisville Metro Council member Doug Hawkins as the Republican candidate. In 1998, I coordinated Doug's campaign for State Representative in a district that crosses over with much of the said State Senate seat's territory, a race that he very narrowly lost.
But Jefferson County Republican Party Chairman Jack Richardson said yesterday that no one has been selected and that it will be up to the approximately 40 members of the party's executive committee.
If you want a refresher on this story, see the FR thread from immediately following Stephenson's election:
Kentucky Senate Seats Disputed Candidate [ didn't live in district required time]
This is sad. I'm sorry she felt she had to do this. This is another example of courts taking for themselves rights they are not granted by the constitution.
The Kentucky constitution specifically provides the qualifications necessary to serve in the senate, but it also specifically provides that the senate itself is the final arbitor of whether a candidate meets those qualifications.
Unfortunately, constitutions were written for an era where people had integrity, where party wasn't more important than the truth, and elected representatives were supposed to represent all the people, not just their parties.
The State Senate, using its normal procedures, made its judgment, and ruled that she met the residency requirements. The court has no right to dispute that ruling, and she should not have to resign. And I would have hoped that even if democrats were in charge, they would have come to the same conclusion, given the facts of the case.
But in fact the democrats would have seated the loser of the race, which was the least tenable outcome. At least now the people will get another election, rather than the majority being disenfranchised.
BTW, if the democrats had been in charge, they WOULD have seated woodward, and there is no chance whatsoever that Woodward would have resigned, or a special election would have been held.
WAVE 3 News
(LOUISVILLE) -- A day after Dana Seum-Stephenson resigned, a contender has stepped forward looking to take Jefferson County's now-empty State Senate seat. Stephenson resigned from the 37th district seat Jan. 3rd after the supreme court ruled she was not eligible. Now both the Republican and Democratic parties in Jefferson County will choose a nominee for a special election.On Wednesday, Louisville Metro Councilman Doug Hawkins announced his intention to run for the vacant seat when a special election. It has been well over a year since the day Stephenson was elected, but what happened since has many hung up on Nov. 3, 2004. "People should decide elections, not the courts," Hawkins said.
The AP story was wrong. She is 33, not 23. Apparently the Senator from Ky, in an interview, mentioned that they could sit a 23-year-old if they wanted to (which I would find over-the-top).
It's not however that the senate can "determine" who can be a senator. The constitution does that. But somebody has to have the job of interpreting the constitution and ruling on specific cases.
In this case, a judge looked at facts and decided, based on his interpretation of the constitution and the facts, that she had not been a "resident". But it was just an interpretation. Some of us here agree with him, and others disagree with him on that, which shows that smart people can have a different opinion on what it means.
But in any case, the constitution says that, for purposes of determining whether a person meets the qualifications as set forth in the constitution, the Senate itself will be the one to "judge" the case. NOT the courts. This is very common -- the federal house and senate both have similar rules, and have in the past had votes on which candidate from an election to seat.
Note that the house can also vote a house member out of office.
It makes sense that each house should make judgments on its own members. And for much of our history, the people we have elected realised that their first duty was to the constution and the people, NOT their party, and they could be generally counted on to do the RIGHT thing.
Very little of our government will work if those we elect don't have a sense of right. We see that with the democrats in the senate -- the filibuster has ALWAYS been around, and yet somehow judges were confirmed with less than 60 votes, and legislation passed with less than 60 votes.
It was always understood that the filibuster had two purposes. First was to hold up legislation so you could get something added you wanted. But often the democrats filibuster now with NO demands. The second was for a rare case where you really believed that a piece of legislation was so bad that democracy should be sacrificed to save the people. But now the democrats use it whenever they can muster 41 votes.
As I have written before, the senate rules were written for adults, not children.
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