Posted on 03/27/2003 10:49:51 PM PST by LdSentinal
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A Republican candidate for lieutenant governor said Thursday he would step aside after a judge ruled he had not lived in Kentucky long enough to run for the state's second-highest office.
Hunter Bates has been the running mate of Ernie Fletcher, a congressman and a leading GOP candidate for governor.
Bates, 35, has spent most of the last six years in a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. The state constitution requires candidates for lieutenant governor to live in Kentucky for six years preceding an election.
Bates, a former chief of staff to Sen. Mitch McConnell , has insisted he never relinquished his Kentucky residency. He and his wife moved to a town just outside Louisville last year.
Without an appeal of the ruling, Fletcher will be able to select a new running mate, said Secretary of State John Y. Brown III.
Campaign manager Daniel Groves said a new candidate for lieutenant governor would likely be chosen by month's end.
Fletcher is one of four candidates in the May 20 Republican primary.
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