How Linda Kerns Cleared the Ballot in the 197th

BY TONY WEST
It may have been the fact Freddy Ramírez couldn’t explain if he was 59 or 69 years old that won Linda Kerns’ case for her.

The endorsed Democratic candidate for the 197th Legislative Dist. had submitted reams of official documents – tax returns, bank statements, security clearances, magazine subscriptions, driver’s licenses – to document that he lived at 440 W. Annsbury Street, a Feltonville rowhome around the corner from one of the treatment centers that Ramírez, a clinical social worker, owns.

But Kerns, who is deputy counsel for the Republican City Committee, noticed some documents said he was born in 1947, others in 1957. And under cross-examination, the candidate produced a jumble of incoherent explanations. They cannot have impressed Commonwealth Court Judge Anne Covey, who was hearing Kerns’ challenge to Ramírez’s petition charging he did not live in the 197th, where he said he did.

Judge Covey threw Ramírez off the ballot on March 3, a decision upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week. In so doing, the outnumbered and under-resourced city Republicans stuck their thumb in the mighty Democratic City Committee’s eye – and pulled off a coup almost unheard of in election law.

The problem lies with what it means to “reside.”

“It’s very difficult to prove that someone isn’t living somewhere. Case law is very loose,” Kerns noted. “People’s lives are complicated. They can have multiple residences. And he had supposedly been living there for 20 years.”

But sharp, patient sleuthing on RCC’s part came up with evidence that carried the day in a historic courtroom victory.

The GOP was undoubtedly helped by leaks from within the fractious Democrats of the Greater Kensington Latino community which dominates that diverse district. Ramírez had defeated rivals to win the party nomination. The RCC was tipped off. But they made the most of it.

RCC Deputy Exec. Dir. Annie Havey combed the 400 block of Annsbury interviewing neighbors. Kerns launched a meticulous record search.

And all in jig time; for election law unfolds at a dizzying speed. More than once, Kerns said, she was forced to bang out a filing literally overnight. Her counterpart, Adam Bonin, who was arguing for the Democrats, was under the same pressure.

But Bonin had reason to relax: Challenges based on candidates’ residency are seldom tried and never won … until now.

The Republicans did their homework. RCC Deputy Chair Annie Havey went door-knocking on the block, asking neighbors if anyone lived in 440. No one said yes; four people said no. Havey, who is a notary, collected signed affidavits from them. All were subpoenaed for the Commonwealth Court hearing; two of them appeared.

Bonin tried to shake their testimony but without success. One reported the porch light and upstairs bedroom light were always left on, but people rarely went to the house and never stayed long. Bonin challenged their ability to watch the street all the time.

But Ilbania Cruz retorted, “My bed is right smack dab in the window. I sit on my bed and I can see everybody walking up and down, going in and out the houses.

“But you’re not staring all the time?” Bonin asked.

“Oh, yes, I am staring because I was shot, so I stare at everything,” Cruz said. “I pay attention to a lot, the way people look, their height, everything. You know, ever since I got shot, that’s like – it’s like a phobia of mine that I have to pay attention to everything.”

Meanwhile, Kerns had been combing through all sorts of records. At the hearing, Ramírez testified that he spent four or five nights a week at 440. He spent Saturday nights with his teenage daughter in Roxborough – the girl was afraid to come to Feltonville – and occasionally visited his girlfriend in Bristol, he said.

But PECO records going back to January 2015 showed Ramírez was consuming up to 17 times more electricity in Roxborough than in Feltonville, often month after month. Water Revenue Bureau records showed impossibly low water usage at 440 as well.

Republican sleuths also found a neighbor in Bristol who recognized Ramírez. “The Bristol guy said sure, [Ramírez] leaves from here every morning,” Kerns related. In a blog post, Ramírez had called himself a Bristol resident.

The kicker: a seven-year-old article in a Bristol newspaper describing Ramírez’ charity relief expedition to Haiti in the wake of its devastating earthquake. At one point, the report described Ramírez as “at home in Bristol for two weeks.”

Covey took her time to decide against Ramírez. But her 50-page opinion left no room for doubt or for appeal.

With Ramírez stricken, the Democratic City Committee rushed to substitute Ward Leader Emilio Vázquez’ name on the ballot; but his paperwork was turned in to the Dept. of State one day too late. DCC appealed this decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Kerns put in an all-nighter to write her brief.

“The statute only allows a party to replace a candidate on a ballot if he withdraws or dies,” Kerns explained. But that was not the case.” The SC ruled against the Democrats, leaving only Republican Lucinda Little on the ballot.

Although official election results have not yet been published, it is unlikely the Republicans’ victory in court was enough to score a victory for Little in the polls.

In a way, though, the unquestioned winner of this bizarre election was the diligent effectiveness of Kerns and her team in the arcane thickets of election law.

“I am horrified at what these Democrats did here,” said Kerns. “I hope this is a lesson to them. I may only be one person but I’m not going away. I would like to see the voters elect a Republican on her merits.”