As you know, the Texas Democratic Party and its candidate for SD22, John Cullar, have filed a lawsuit challenging the residency of Republican candidate Bill Birdwell. Here’s the latest news regarding that:
The Dallas Court of Appeals has asked Sen. Brian Birdwell and Republican Party chairman Steve Munisteri to send in their replies to a Democratic challenge of Birdwell’s eligibility by 5 p.m. Thursday, according to an order issued by the court late Monday.
The order gives the Texas Democratic Party and Democratic senate hopeful John Cullar until 5 p.m. Friday to file a reply.
The lawsuit asking Birdwell to be declared ineligible was filed jointly by the Democratic Party and Cullar on Friday of last week in Fort Worth’s 2nd Court of Appeals. It was transferred to the Dallas court late the same day after the Fort Worth justices declared themselves “unavailable.” Under state law in such circumstances a case gets moved to the nearest appeals court, which in this instance was Dallas.
The petition asks for an expedited ruling, citing an Aug. 20 deadline to get Birdwell removed from the ballot assuming he’s determined to be ineligible.
I fully expect that expedited ruling to be made in time. After that, we’ll see if anyone appeals. On a related note, the Trib has a story about other recent residency challenges.