Court dismisses challenge to state Senate candidate’s residency

HARRISBURG — A Commonwealth Court judge on Wednesday dismissed a case challenging the residency of a Democratic state Senate candidate and allowed her name to remain on the November ballot.

Democrat Lindsey Williams, who is running in the 38th District north of Pittsburgh, said she was happy “that this distraction is over” and she could return to focusing on policy issues, such as public education and health care.

But state Republicans, who supported the legal challenge, indicated Wednesday evening that they might not be ready to drop the fight.

Republicans are still not convinced that Ms. Williams meets the four-year residency requirement outlined in the state constitution and are weighing whether to appeal the issue to the state Supreme Court, Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for the state party, said in a statement.

Whether they would succeed is unclear.

Commonwealth Court Judge Michael Wojcik, who ran as a Democrat, wrote in his 10-page opinion issued Wednesday that the challenge to Ms. Williams’ residency was “a barely colorable claim.”

Ms. Williams is running against Republican Jeremy Shaffer in a fierce fight to replace current state Sen. Randy Vulakovich, who lost the GOP primary in May.

Two residents of the state Senate’s 38th District — one a Republican and one a member of the Constitution Party — filed a petition earlier this month seeking to have Ms. Williams tossed from the ballot. They claim that she does not meet the residency mandate, which requires a candidate to have been living in Pennsylvania as of Nov. 6, 2014, to successfully run this year.

They cite her decision to vote in Maryland in the November 2014 election, a Pennsylvania speeding ticket she paid in early November 2014 on which a Maryland address was listed for her, and her decision to register to vote in Allegheny County in December 2014.

Ms. Williams has said she does meet the requirements. She said she received a job offer in Allegheny County in October 2014, accepted it Nov. 2, 2014, and drove to Pennsylvania in late October 2014 to begin the moving process.

Both sides have argued that past case law works in their favor.