I wish you had seen the entire text of my remarks. Dana Stevenson meets the technical reqirements of Section 32 of the Constitution.

Judge Wilett was simply wrong. He applied a standard of legal Domicle for six years. The constitution only reqires that the Senator have “resided in Kentucky for six years”. There is a big difference. As you know a person may have a legal Domicile, i. e. where he or she votes and claims legal residence and not actually live in that state (e.g. Soldiers, Business people like John Y Brown, jr. prior to running for election as Kentucky Governor).

On the other hand a person may have multple residences like many of the Florida snowbirders with homes in multiple states. These people have regularly resided in more than one state. That is what Dana Stevenson did.

She moved her Domicile to Indiana to qualify for resident tuition during the first 2&1/2 years of the six year period. However, during that same time, she continued to maintain the residense in Kentucky she bought 10 years ago and lives in now. She has continued to work there for the last 10 years as a teacher, coach and after school tutor for ACT prepartion. She paid State property and income taxes.

She testifed before the Senate that a typical day consisted of reporting to work at 7:30 a.m., teaching a regular class load, staying after school to teach extended school sevices for struggling students, then home to her Kentucky residense to rest. At night she came back to school to coach untill 10:00 p.m., except those nights she went to Indiana for her Master’s Degree classes. When she coached late she spent the night in her Kentucky residense. When she attended classes in Indianna she stayed in her Indianna residense. On saturdays she gave ACT prep classes in Kentucky and on Sundays she attended church at her lifelong homechurch in Kentucky.

On vacations and holidays she and her family liked to stay at the Kentucky residense because it had a pool.

These are the facts that were enough for me. Remember the constitution only reqires that a legislative candidates Domicile or “citizenship” be in Kentucky “at the time of the election”.

The Governor , on the other hand must have both Citizenship and reside in Kentucky for six years. John Y. Brown was considered to have met this standard even though he had very minimal contact with the state as an adult.

Finally, the most critical factor is that Senator stevenson won the election. this is how we select our represenatives, not by last minute court challenges.

The story of Dana living in Indianna was broadcast all over her disdrict after the last minute press conference by her opponent who had this information from a detective she hired back in the summer. Rather than bring it out early when Dana could possibly have been replaced, she waited to the last minute and then after the press conference used professional phonebanks to call the voters in the District and she still lost.

The voters chose Dana. She meets the minimum standards of having resided in Kentucky for the previous six years by having owned a residense, paid taxes and maintained more than substantial contact with the state during that entire time. That was enough for me.

Unfortunately the media has never presented all of the information before the Senate. Both major papers want a new election because they hoped a Democrat would win. But the people have already spoken for this term.