[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.]

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA

MIDDLE DISTRICT

IN RE: NOMINATION PETITION OF 

ROBERT JORDAN AS REPUBLICAN 

CANDIDATE FOR STATE 

REPRESENTATIVE FROM THE 165TH 

LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT

APPEAL OF: FRED RUNGE,

Objector

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No. 56 MAP 2022

Appeal from the Order of the 

Commonwealth Court at No. 187 

MD 2022 dated April 11, 2022.

SUBMITTED: April 16, 2022

DISSENTING OPINION

DECIDED: April 19, 2022

JUSTICE BROBSON OPINION FILED: July 20, 2022

I prefer the plurality’s analysis over that of Justice Hutchinson’s dissent in 

Nomination Petition of Jones, 476 A.2d 1287 (Pa. 1984). More importantly, however, 

subsequent legislative action clearly evinces the General Assembly’s intent to reserve 

unto the respective Houses of the General Assembly the exclusive authority to enforce 

the constitutional residency requirements applicable to their members. For these 

reasons, I dissented from the April 19, 2022 per curiam Order, reversing the 

Commonwealth Court’s decision in this matter.

Jones involved challenges to the nomination petitions of Roxanne H. Jones 

(Jones), who filed to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for a seat in the 

Pennsylvania Senate. The objectors, which included the Democrat incumbent, sought to 

challenge Jones’ petitions on the ground that if she prevailed, the Pennsylvania Senate 

“might refuse to seat her,” as the objectors claimed that Jones could not satisfy the 

one-year residency requirement in Article II, section 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. 

Jones, 476 A.2d at 1289 (emphasis in original). The Commonwealth Court sustained the 
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challenge, concluding that Jones, if elected, could not meet the constitutional residency 

requirement applicable to state senators. In separate per curiam orders, this Court1

reversed, holding that the objectors failed to establish a valid challenge to Jones’ 

candidacy under the Pennsylvania Election Code (Election Code).

2

 Justices McDermott 

and Hutchinson noted their dissents, because the petition seeking to set aside Jones’ 

nomination petitions “expressly relied on Section 977 of the Election Code.” 

Jones, 476 A.2d at 1288. Section 977 of the Election Code3 provided then, as it does 

today, that a court must set aside challenged nomination petitions if, inter alia, the court 

determines that the nomination petition “was not filed by persons entitled to file the same.” 

(Emphasis added.)

Chief Justice Nix later authored a plurality opinion in support of the Court’s per 

curiam orders.4 The plurality first observed that Section 977 of the Election Code provides 

the sole and exclusive remedy for challenging nomination petitions or papers of a person 

seeking elective office. Id. at 1294. The plurality found, however, that the objectors in 

Jones presented their residency qualification challenge as a constitutional challenge, not 

“in the specific terms of [S]ection 977.” Id. at 1295. The plurality expounded further that 

the constitutional residency challenge was “not in any way related to an objection to the 

nomination petition under that section.” Id. In other words, to the plurality, Section 977 did 

 

1 Of the six justices participating, only Justices McDermott and Hutchinson 

dissented.

2 Act of June 3, 1937, P.L. 1333, as amended, 25 P.S. §§ 2600-3591.

3 25 P.S. § 2937.

4 Justice Flaherty did not join the Chief Justice’s opinion, noting his concurrence 

without writing separately. Justice Hutchinson wrote a dissenting opinion, in which 

Justice McDermott joined. Justice McDermott wrote a brief dissenting opinion, in which 

Justice Hutchinson joined. What we have then, with Jones, is a majority result—

reversal—with a plurality opinion in support and two minority opinions in dissent.
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 3

not (and does not) confer jurisdiction on the courts to enforce the Article II, 

section 5 residency requirement on would-be candidates.

In the principal dissenting opinion, Justice Hutchinson, by contrast, took a much 

broader view of the courts’ authority under Section 977 of the Election Code. First, Justice 

Hutchinson rejected the plurality’s view that the objectors failed to present their challenge 

in terms of Section 977 of the Election Code, noting that the first paragraph of their petition 

to set aside the nomination petitions expressly cited to Section 977. Id. at 1299 

(Hutchinson, J., dissenting). Next, referring specifically to the language of Section 977, 

Justice Hutchinson noted that “[a] person who cannot serve is not entitled to file.” Id. 

Justice Hutchinson bolstered his reasoning by citing to Section 910 of the Election Code,5

which then (as it does now) required a person to attest on his or her candidate affidavit 

that he or she, inter alia, is “eligible” for the office sought. This statutory text, in Justice 

Hutchinson’s view, evinced the General Assembly’s intent to “entrust[] to the judiciary a 

priori determination of the presence of the impediment our Constitution’s Article II, 

[s]ection 5, places against a non-resident’s representing a Senatorial District.” 

Id. at 1300.

In reply, the Jones plurality criticized Justice Hutchinson for attempting to recast 

the objectors’ constitutional residency challenge to one of false swearing under 

Section 910 of the Election Code. Id. at 1295 (plurality opinion). The plurality further 

criticized Justice Hutchinson for equating “entitled to file” in Section 977 with “eligible for 

such office” in Section 910, characterizing it as an “extraordinary leap” to “assum[e] all of 

the laws of the Commonwealth, including Article 2, section 5, pertaining to qualifications 

for holding public office are incorporated into [S]ection 910.” Id. at 1295-96. The plurality 

 

5 25 P.S. § 2870.
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opined: “[I]t does not necessarily follow that the legislature intended to use the election 

process as a device to screen against every possible impediment to holding office.” 

Id. at 1295. 

The obvious deficiency I see in Justice Hutchinson’s dissent in Jones, aside from 

the fact that it garnered support from only two of the six justices who decided the matter, 

is that the Pennsylvania Constitution imposes no residency requirement on candidates 

who merely aspire to be members of the General Assembly and seek election thereto. 

Article II, section 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, titled “Qualifications of members,” 

provides:

Senators shall be at least [25] years of age and Representatives [21]

years of age. They shall have been citizens and inhabitants of the State 

four years, and inhabitants of their respective districts one year next before 

their election (unless absent on the public business of the United States or 

of this State), and shall reside in their respective districts during their terms 

of service.

(Emphasis added.) Section 9 of the same article provides, in relevant part: “Each House 

shall . . . judge of the election and qualifications of its members.” (Emphasis added.) In 

my view, this clear and unambiguous text imposes a residency requirement on members

of the Senate and the House of Representatives, but not on candidates seeking to 

become members. Constitutional residency qualifications, then, are to be challenged and 

assessed against a member, not against a candidate (or potential candidate). Further, 

according to the Pennsylvania Constitution, such challenges must be lodged before the 

appropriate House of the General Assembly and not the courts.

Section 977 of the Election Code authorizes the courts, inter alia, to set aside 

nomination petitions or papers by “persons” who are “not . . . entitled to file the same.” 

This provision is applicable to potential candidates for office, not current members of the 

General Assembly. The majority draws a clear distinction between candidates and 
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 5

members when taking a narrow view of each House’s constitutional power to judge the 

qualification only of its “members.”6 Incongruously, like Justice Hutchinson’s dissent in 

Jones, the majority broadly interprets the courts’ authority under Section 977 to apply a 

constitutional member residency qualification to candidates.7 I believe the majority got it 

right the first time. Members and candidates are different, at least when it comes to the 

application and enforcement of the constitutional residency qualification for members of 

the General Assembly.

I also respectfully disagree with the foundation of Justice Hutchinson’s dissent in

Jones, adopted by the majority here, that “[a]n individual who cannot meet the 

constitutional residency requirements . . . is not entitled to file a nomination petition.” 

 

6

“Setting aside the General Assembly’s constitutional responsibility for questions 

of membership, candidate eligibility cannot lie outside the judiciary’s purview if the 

Constitution and the Election Code are to be applied impartially and with fidelity to their 

terms.” (Maj. Op. at 21 (emphasis in original).)

7 Contrast the language of Article II, section 5 with the language in Article IV, 

section 5 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, relating to “Qualifications of Governor, 

Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General,” which provides:

No person shall be eligible to the office of Governor, Lieutenant 

Governor or Attorney General except a citizen of the United States, who 

shall have attained the age of 30 years, and have been seven years next 

preceding his election an inhabitant of this Commonwealth, unless he shall 

have been absent on the public business of the United States or of this 

Commonwealth. No person shall be eligible to the office of Attorney 

General except a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

(Emphasis added.) Unlike the language in Article II, section 5, the age, residency, and 

bar membership eligibility requirements in Article IV, section 5 do not apply strictly to 

elected governors, lieutenant governors, or attorneys general; rather, the language can 

be read to apply more broadly to all “persons” and thus can arguably be applied to those 

persons who seek to become candidates for these offices but are constitutionally 

ineligible. Similar broad language appears in Article II, section 7, titled “Ineligibility by 

criminal convictions”: “No person hereafter convicted of embezzlement of public moneys, 

bribery, perjury or other infamous crime, shall be eligible to the General Assembly, or 

capable of holding any office of trust or profit in this Commonwealth.” (Emphasis added.)
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 6

(Maj. Op. at 21.) Instead, as the Jones plurality noted, there is no textual mooring to this 

statement, either in the Election Code or, more importantly, Article II of the Pennsylvania 

Constitution.8 On matters involving the interpretation of constitutional provisions or 

statutes, the unambiguous text, not “time-honored principles of constitutional 

governance,” (Maj. Op. at 20), informs my thinking. See 1 Pa. C.S. § 1921(b). Article II, 

section 5 imposes a residency requirement on members, not candidates. The Election 

Code does not impose any residency requirement on persons who file nomination 

petitions or papers. Accordingly, a nomination petition or paper challenge predicated on 

an allegation that a potential candidate does not meet a constitutional residency 

requirement applicable only to members cannot be sustained under Section 977 of the 

Election Code.

While neither the Pennsylvania Constitution nor the Election Code imposes a 

residency requirement on candidates or potential candidates, the Election Code contains 

several provisions that proscribe who is (and is not) “entitled” to file nomination petitions 

and nomination papers,9 which can be enforced through a Section 977 challenge. 

 

8 The Jones plurality observed:

It is most significant that in spite of that dissent’s liberal use of citations 

generally, not one case, not a scintilla of authority nor a prior decision is set 

forth to support this premise. To the contrary, it does not necessarily follow 

that the legislature intended to use the election process as a device to 

screen against every possible impediment to holding office.

Jones, 476 A.2d at 1295.

9 The Election Code sorts political organizations into one of two categories—

“political body” or “political party”—based on the percentage of the vote a political 

organization’s candidate receives in the immediately preceding general or municipal 

election. Section 801 of the Election Code, 25 P.S. § 2831. Candidates of political parties 

are nominated through primary elections and must file nomination petitions to appear on 

the primary election ballot. Sections 902 and 907 of the Election Code, 25 P.S. §§ 2862, 

2867. Political parties whose members account for less than 15% of the statewide 

registration across all political parties, however, are considered “minor” political parties. 
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 7

To appear on a political party’s primary ballot, a person must be “a duly registered and 

enrolled member of said party.” Section 907 of the Election Code, 25 P.S. § 2867. For 

example, a registered Republican is not entitled to file nomination petitions to appear on 

the Democrat primary ballot. Under the Election Code’s “anti-fusion” provision, a person

can only seek to appear on the ballot for a single political party or body. Section 951(e)(5) 

of the Election Code, 25 P.S. § 2911(e)(5); see generally Working Families Party v. 

Commonwealth, 209 A.3d 270 (Pa. 2019) (rejecting constitutional challenges to 

anti-fusion provision in Election Code). Similarly, under the Election Code’s “sore loser” 

provision, a person cannot file nomination papers “if the candidate . . . filed a nomination 

petition for any public office for the ensuing primary.” Section 976 of the Election Code, 

25 P.S. § 2936; see generally In re Cohen for Office of Phila. City Council-at-Large, 

225 A.3d 1083 (Pa. 2020) (applying Election Code “sore loser” provision). Section 951.1 

of the Election Code, referred to as the “disaffiliation” provision, specifically addresses 

“eligibility” and provides:

Any person who is a registered and enrolled member of a party 

during any period of time beginning with thirty (30) days before the primary 

and extending through the general or municipal election of that same year 

shall be ineligible to be the candidate of a political body in a general or 

municipal election held in that same year nor shall any person who is a 

registered and enrolled member of a party be eligible to be the candidate of 

a political body for a special election.

25 P.S. § 2911.1; see generally Matter of Nomination Papers of Mlinarich, 266 A.3d 1189 

(Pa. Cmwlth. 2021) (single-judge opinion) (applying “disaffiliation” provision of Election 

 

Section 912.2(a) of the Election Code, 25 P.S. § 2872.2(a). Candidates of minor political 

parties and political organizations who wish to appear on the municipal or general election 

ballot may not participate in primaries and must file nomination papers to appear on the 

municipal or general election ballot. Sections 912.2 and 951 of the Election Code, 

25 P.S. §§ 2872.2, 2911.
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 8

Code). These are the types of nomination petition and paper challenges cognizable 

under Section 977’s “entitled to file” provision.

Resolution of this case, however, is not as simple as choosing among the Jones

majority result, the plurality opinion, and Justice Hutchinson’s dissenting opinion. This 

case is principally one of statutory construction, where “[t]he object . . . is to ascertain and 

effectuate the intention of the General Assembly.” 1 Pa. C.S. § 1921(a). As the majority 

notes, shortly after Jones was decided, the General Assembly passed Act 4 of 1985 

(Act 4),10 which, inter alia, amended Section 910 of the Election Code, relating to the 

contents of a candidate affidavit. Act 4 left unaltered the requirement in Section 910 that 

the candidate affirm generally that he or she “is eligible” for the office sought. Section 3 

of Act 4, however, added the following language to Section 910 specifically addressed to 

affidavits for candidates for the General Assembly:

In cases of petitions for candidates for the General Assembly, the 

candidate’s affidavit shall state (1) that the candidate will satisfy the 

eligibility requirements contained in sections 5 and 7 of Article II of the 

Constitution of Pennsylvania; (2)(i) that in the case of a candidate for the 

office of Senator in the General Assembly that the candidate will be 

twenty-five (25) years of age on or before the first day of the term for which 

the candidate seeks election or (ii) that in the case of a candidate for the 

office of Representative in the General Assembly that the candidate will be 

twenty-one (21) years of age on or before the first day of the term for which 

the candidate seeks election; (3) that the candidate shall have been a 

citizen and inhabitant of Pennsylvania four (4) years and an inhabitant of 

the respective district one (1) year next before the election (unless absent 

on the public business of the United States or of this State); and (4) that the 

candidate has not been convicted of embezzlement of public moneys, 

bribery, perjury or other infamous crimes.

In addition, Section 5 of Act 4 amended Section 977 of the Election Code. While retaining 

the “entitled to file” language in that section discussed by the Court in Jones, Section 5 of 

 

10 Act of April 18, 1985, P.L. 5.
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Act 4 amended Section 977 to add a new, separate basis on which a nomination petition 

or paper can be challenged: “[I]f any accompanying or appended affidavit contains a 

material defect or error, it shall be set aside. For purposes of this section, a nomination 

petition or paper shall include all affidavits required to be filed with such nomination 

petition or paper under this act.”

It is fair to presume that the General Assembly amended Sections 910 and 977 of 

the Election Code in response to this Court’s majority result and plurality opinion in Jones. 

Cf. Buehl v. Horn, 728 A.2d 973, 980 (Pa. 1999) (“The General Assembly is presumed to 

concur with the interpretation placed upon a statute if it does not amend the statute within 

a reasonable time.”). In so doing, the General Assembly retained the language 

interpreted by the Jones plurality—“eligible for such office” in Section 977 and “entitled to 

file” in Section 910.11 It added new language to deal directly with residency challenges 

to candidates for the General Assembly—an amendment that would not have been 

necessary if the General Assembly merely wanted to adopt Justice Hutchinson’s dissent 

in Jones. After the Act 4 amendments, it was clear that the General Assembly intended 

the courts, under Section 977 of the Election Code, to set aside the nomination petitions 

and papers of any candidate for membership in the General Assembly who could not 

meet the constitutional qualifications—not because the candidate was “not . . . entitled to 

file” or was “not eligible for such office,” but under the new authority to police for material 

 

11 See 1 Pa. C.S.§ 1922(4) (providing statutory construction presumption that 

“when a court of last resort has construed the language used in a statute, the General 

Assembly in subsequent statutes on the same subject matter intends the same 

construction to be placed upon such language”). I acknowledge, of course, the argument 

that a plurality opinion is not a majority opinion of this Court. Nonetheless, it is quite 

reasonable to assume, if not presume, that if the General Assembly disagreed with the 

plurality’s construction of Sections 910 and 977 of the Election Code, Act 4 would have 

been the logical place to lodge that disagreement.
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 10

defects or errors the newly-required affidavit for General Assembly candidates relating to 

constitutional qualifications.

Following the passage of Act 4, the Commonwealth Court decided Nomination 

Petition of Street, 516 A.2d 791 (Pa. Cmwlth. 1986) (single-judge opinion). As the 

majority points out, the Commonwealth Court held that the passage of Act 4 “addressed 

the deficiency” in the power of the courts to apply the constitutional residency requirement 

to candidates for the General Assembly under the Election Code. Street, 516 A.2d at 792

(emphasis added). The Commonwealth Court explained:

Pursuant to the legislative authority granted by Act 4 of 1985, we are 

now confronted with a situation which requires us to review a candidate’s 

qualifications challenged by a petition alleging a defect in the candidate’s 

affidavit. As the Jones court acknowledged, a false candidate’s affidavit is 

a fatal defect which cannot be amended and would require the setting aside 

of the nomination petition.

Id. at 793. On the merits, the Commonwealth Court held that the objector failed to meet 

her burden of proof in establishing that the candidate did not satisfy the constitutional 

residency requirement and dismissed the petition to set aside the candidate’s nominating 

petition. Id. at 795-96.

In In re Prendergast, 673 A.2d 324 (Pa. 1996), although this Court did not explicitly 

adopt the Jones plurality, it approved the Commonwealth Court’s reasoning in Street that 

the Act 4 amendments to the Election Code remedied the Jones majority result and the 

plurality’s rationale that the constitutional residency requirement for members of the 

General Assembly was not justiciable under the Election Code. Prendergast, 673 A.2d 

at 325. There, this Court determined that the candidate was a citizen of a state other than 

Pennsylvania during part of the four-year period preceding the General Election. 

Id. at 328. Her candidate affidavit to the contrary was, therefore, false, and the Court 
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 11

affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s decision to set aside the candidate’s nomination 

petition under Section 977 of the Election Code. Id.

Following Prendergast, the General Assembly again amended the Election Code. 

Act 18 of 1998 (Act 18),12 inter alia, deleted the Act 4 amendments to Sections 910 

and 977 discussed above and that formed the basis of the Commonwealth Court’s 

jurisdictional determination in Street, which this Court adopted in Prendergast. The 

majority, embracing a post-Act 18 single-judge opinion from the Commonwealth Court,13

contends that Act 18, and by extension Act 4, were nothingburgers, because, adopting 

Justice Hutchinson’s dissent in Jones, the courts always had the authority under 

Section 977 to adjudicate challenges to the constitutional eligibility of General Assembly 

candidates. (Maj. Op. at 21-23.) “Nothing in the amendment history of Section 977,” the 

majority opines, “much less its legislative history, shakes our view.” (Id. at 22.)

The majority cites to no case or principle of statutory construction in support of the 

proposition that courts should glean absolutely nothing in terms of the General 

Assembly’s intent when the General Assembly amends a statute. Here, the General 

Assembly amended the Election Code not once but twice to deal with the question of 

whether the courts may apply to candidates the constitutional residency qualification for 

General Assembly members through the Election Code—first by expressly granting 

courts the authority (in response to Jones) and later by purposefully removing that 

authority (in response to Prendergast). The majority laments that “[i]f the Legislature felt 

 

12 Act of February 13, 1998, P.L. 72.

13 Nomination Petition of Pippy, 711 A.2d 1048 (Pa. Cmwlth.) (single-judge 

opinion), aff’d per curiam, 709 A.2d 905 (Pa. 1998). When the court decided Pippy, the 

Internal Operating Procedures of the Commonwealth Court provided that single-judge 

opinions of the court, even if reported, could not be cited as binding precedent.
[J-39-2022] [MO: Wecht, J.] - 12

as strongly as some have suggested about denying our authority over these contests, it 

could have done more than leave us to derive that intention by inference.” (Maj. Op. at 23

(emphasis added).) But it did.

Article III, section 3 of the Pennsylvania Constitution commands the General 

Assembly to set forth clearly the subject of each bill in its title.14 The title of House 

Bill 1760, which became Act 18, is lengthy. Within the title, however, is the following 

subject: “removing certain jurisdiction from the courts.” The only provisions in Act 18 that 

even arguably go to the jurisdiction of the courts, particularly in light of Jones and 

Prendergast, are the amendments to Sections 910 and 977, removing the authority of the 

courts expressly conferred by Act 4.15 Accordingly, the General Assembly clearly 

expressed its legislative intent in Act 18 to remove the jurisdiction previously given to the 

courts under Act 4. See Davey v. Ruffell, 29 A. 894, 895 (Pa. 1894) (“We may gather the 

intent of the legislature from the title of the act, and from the preamble.”). The intent of 

the General Assembly, so clearly and unambiguously stated, must be given effect.16 See

 

14 “No bill shall be passed containing more than one subject, which shall be clearly 

expressed in its title, except a general appropriation bill or a bill codifying or compiling the 

law or a part thereof.” Pa. Const. art. III, § 3.

15 The majority correctly notes that, under the Statutory Construction Act, 1 Pa. 

C.S. § 1924, “[t]he title and preamble of a statute may be considered in the construction 

thereof.” Here, the majority claims authority to ignore the title of Act 18 entirely, ascribing 

it no value or meaning under the view that the “operative text [of the Election Code] is 

unambiguous.” (Maj. Op. at 23 n.16.) Respectfully, “[t]he legacy of pre-[Act 18] decisions 

. . . as well as the division among the Justices in [Jones], suggest otherwise.” Leadbitter 

v. Keystone Anesthesia Consultants, Ltd., 256 A.3d 1164, 1188 (Pa. 2021) (Wecht, J., 

concurring).

16 If the majority and I agree on one thing (see Maj. Op. at 21-23), perhaps it is that 

the “remarks and understanding of individual legislators[] [are] not relevant in ascertaining 

the meaning of a statute.” McCormick v. Columbus Conveyor Co., 564 A.2d 907, 910 n.1 

(Pa. 1989). I, however, would hardly consider the constitutionally required title of an Act 

of the General Assembly, signed by the Governor, a mere “nook or cranny.” (Maj. Op. 

at 22.)
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Mercury Trucking, Inc. v. Pa. Pub. Util. Comm’n, 55 A.3d 1056, 1067 (Pa. 2012) (“The 

object of statutory construction is to ascertain and effectuate the General Assembly’s 

intent.”). The majority’s analysis in this case and the Commonwealth Court’s analysis in 

Pippy are clearly at odds with the General Assembly’s clear and express intent in Act 18. 

Regardless of how one might feel about the Jones plurality and dissenting opinions, 

subsequent legislative history has rendered any debate over Jones inconsequential.

Further, the majority’s approach inserts judicial review of a constitutional residency 

qualification for elected members of the General Assembly into the Election Code, making 

it applicable to candidates. Doing so materially diminishes, if not entirely neuters, the 

exclusive power of the General Assembly to assess the residency qualification of its

members under Article II, section 9 of the Pennsylvania Constitution. Courts will 

essentially be culling the herd for the General Assembly. The majority’s approach also 

creates the potential for conflict, should, for example, a court reject a residency 

qualification challenge to a Senate candidate’s nomination petition or papers, only for the 

Senate to determine later that the successful candidate (Senator-elect) does not meet the 

constitutional residency qualification under Article II, section 5. Perhaps worse, a court 

could strike a person’s nomination petition under circumstances where, if the person 

prevailed in the election, the Senate would have found that the Senator-elect met the 

constitutional residency requirement. The majority’s decision in this case opens the door 

to these possible conflicts between coordinate branches of government.

Turning to Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962), and the question of whether the 

residency of a candidate for the General Assembly is a nonjusticiable political question, I 

note, again, that there is no provision in the Pennsylvania Constitution that imposes a 

residency requirement on candidates for the General Assembly. Here, the majority 

attempts to apply the Article II, section 5 residency qualification applicable to members of 
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the General Assembly to candidates. Article II, section 9, however, is a “textually 

demonstrable constitutional commitment” of application and enforcement of Article II, 

section 5 to each House of the General Assembly, not to the courts. Baker, 369 U.S. 

at 217. Undertaking an assessment of member residency qualification at the candidate 

stage unquestionably limits, if not eliminates, the General Assembly’s constitutional 

power to judge the residency qualifications of its members. It thus is impossible for the 

courts to enter into that inquiry under the Election Code “without expressing lack of the 

respect due” to the General Assembly. Id. And, as explained above, there is “the 

potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements” by the courts and the 

General Assembly on the constitutional residency question. Id. Unlike the majority, then, 

I conclude that this case presents a nonjusticiable political question warranting dismissal. 

Id.

To summarize, the Pennsylvania Constitution does not impose a residency 

requirement on candidates who seek election to the General Assembly. Application and 

enforcement of the constitutional residency qualifications for members is clearly and 

expressly delegated to each House of the General Assembly, and not to the courts. To 

the extent there was any question following Jones as to whether Sections 910 and 977 of 

the Election Code could be read to confer implicitly on the courts the authority to apply 

the constitutional residency qualification for members to candidates, the passage of the 

Act 4 amendments and the subsequent repeal of those amendments by Act 18, wherein 

the General Assembly clearly and unambiguously set forth its intent to “remov[e] certain 

jurisdiction from the courts,” resolved that question. For these reasons, I would have 

affirmed the Commonwealth Court’s decision below.