ST PAUL, Minn. — The legal drama surrounding Minnesota's 2nd District Congressional seat is making its way to the highest court in the land, after Republican challenger Tyler Kistner announced he will appeal a decision regarding the timing of the election.
The maneuvering follows a ruling Friday by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who denied Kistner’s request to put a lower court decision on hold while he appeals.
The date of the election for the seat currently held by Democratic U.S. Rep. Angie Craig became an issue after the death of a third-party candidate triggered a Minnesota state law that automatically postponed the contest to February.
Craig filed suit, arguing that postponing the election to February would leave her constituents without a voice in Washington. With no election and no winner in November, no candidate would be able to fill the seat when members of Congress are sworn in this January.
A lower court ruled in Craig's favor in early October, moving the election back to Nov. 3. Kistner then appealed that ruling, intending to force a special election for the seat in February.
"I intend to file an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court," Kistner said in a released statement Friday. "In the meantime, I urge all voters to participate in this election on November 3rd and help me send a clear message to Angie Craig that her political games and gamesmanship have run their course.”
Craig's campaign was pleased by the ruling. "My opponent’s effort to delay the upcoming election would have left the hardworking families of Minnesota’s Second Congressional District without a voice in Washington at a time when critical legislation affecting our communities was being debated in Congress," Craig said in a statement. "The courts have spoken – now it is time for the people of Minnesota’s Second Congressional District to decide.”
There is no word on if or when the U.S. Supreme Court will consider the case.
