UPDATE: Judge rules Ann Kirkpatrick has Tucson residency, can stay on ballot
PHOENIX — Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick acknowledged Monday she circulated petitions for her congressional bid last year and earlier this year that bore a Tucson address where she did not live at the time.
Under often testy questioning from the attorney for challengers to her candidacy, Kirkpatrick also admitted she paid no rent at the first of two Tucson addresses at which she claims to have lived. She also said she has no insurance for loss of personal possessions at the apartment she now lists as her address, although she maintains such coverage for a home in Flagstaff and a condo in Phoenix.
Attorney David Weatherwax is using her answers to undermine her claim of Tucson residency as she seeks to represent Congressional District 2, which covers the eastern half of Pima County and all of Cochise County.
But Daniel Arellano, one of Kirkpatrick’s attorneys, said nothing in her answers proves she was not a resident of the district.
He also said that even if Kirkpatrick was not living at the Tucson addresses she listed on her nominating papers and petitions — a point he is not conceding — it does not matter.
Arellano told Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joshua Rogers that the U.S. Constitution does not impose residency requirements on congressional candidates or on Congress members once they are elected. Instead, he said, the only mandate that can be imposed is that someone be an “inhabitant” of the state where they are running.
Anything else, he said, is legally irrelevant.
Craig Morgan, also representing challengers, said that’s true — up to a point.
He said Arizona law requires candidates for all offices to list their address on nominating papers and petitions. And he argued to Rogers that law is valid and enforceable — and does not conflict with the Constitution — because it is designed to prevent possible confusion for petition signers and voters.
Arellano scoffed at that. “There is only one Ann Kirkpatrick running for Congress in the 2nd Congressional District,” he said.
The legal challenge to her candidacy based on residency questions will disappear if Rogers accepts Arellano’s argument that where she lives is irrelevant. Rogers said he will rule on that question as early as Tuesday, June 19.
But with a deadline to resolve election challenges, the judge on Monday still wanted to hear both sides argue the question of where Kirkpatrick lived before and lives now should he conclude that the legal challenge is valid.
At various points in the hearing, which lasted all afternoon, Kirkpatrick and Weatherwax got into disputes over details of her residency.
For example, Weatherwax pointed out that Kirkpatrick was still writing checks with her Flagstaff address on them long after she said she moved to Tucson.
Then there’s the fact she paid no rent at the first Tucson residence but instead picked up the utility bills. Kirkpatrick said there’s nothing wrong or unusual with that, saying the homeowners, friends of her husband, spend half the year in Tucson and half elsewhere.
“It was a win-win,” she said. “They wanted to have somebody in the house. We took care for the house for them.”
Weatherwax even tried to make a point about a photo taken by an acquaintance of her closet at the Tucson address. “There aren’t a lot of clothes in this picture,” he said.
“I don’t wear a lot of clothes,” she shot back.
There were also questions about addresses on some documents not matching with the dates she said she lived at different places.
In February, for example, she signed a petition to help put Bill Mundell on the ballot in his bid for Arizona Corporation Commission. The address listed on the petition was not where she was living at the time.
“I didn’t write that in,” Kirkpatrick responded, saying she simply put in her post office box number.
Kirkpatrick testified she moved from Flagstaff last year to the first Tucson address — the home that belonged to the other couple — to be with her daughter. She later began looking for an apartment to share with son-in-law, Sheridan Curry; they moved to North Shannon Road last October.
But Kirkpatrick said she definitely was in Tucson as of April 2017 when she decided to run for Congress, a decision she said she made after Rep. Martha McSally, who currently represents the congressional district, voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
She also vehemently denied that she was ever a resident of Phoenix where her husband, Roger Curry, resides. Kirkpatrick said the only reason she spent half of her nights at that address in May is that she was involved in campaigning and raising money for her race.
“I don’t live there,” she told Weatherwax.
“The court gets to make that decision,” he responded.
The lawsuit to have Kirkpatrick disqualified is being financed by Matt Heinz, according to his campaign spokesman Brian Robinson. He is one of the six other Democrats in the race hoping to grab the open congressional seat now that McSally is running for the U.S. Senate.
