Anne Arundel judge disqualifies primary challenger’s MD House candidacy

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ANNAPOLIS — An Anne Arundel County judge moved to disqualify Democrat John Dove Jr. from a Maryland House of Delegates primary race, finding that he does not reside in the district he aims to represent.

The challenge in the District 12B campaign will likely head back to the Maryland Supreme Court. Dove’s attorney, Tiffany Alston, almost immediately filed a notice to appeal the decision by Anne Arundel County Circuit Judge Robert Thompson, who found that although Dove, 61, intends to move into a Pasadena home within the district, the Democrat had not “perfected” those intentions in time.

“It’s bad timing,” said Thompson, who issued his ruling orally following a rushed evidentiary hearing on Monday morning.

Last week, the state’s highest court overturned a prior ruling by Thompson that dismissed incumbent Del. Gary Simmons‘ lawsuit against Dove, remanding the case back to Anne Arundel Circuit Court for a hearing on the merits. The state supreme court’s per curiam decision mandated a ruling by noon on Monday and any subsequent appeals by 4 p.m.

Simmons, 54, of Brooklyn Park said in a statement after the decision that he was “eager to focus” on his general election campaign. Casino auditor Blair L. Brannock, 49, of Brooklyn Park, is running uncontested in the Republican primary.

At the hearing Monday, Dove testified that he and his family were planning to move into the Pasadena home, but the transition would require renovations to accommodate his aging father-in-law, who owns the property.

He had, however, changed the address on his voter registration and driver’s license to the new home earlier this year, prior to filing as a candidate with the new address. Dove testified that he decided to run due to issues surrounding Simmons’ use of campaign funds.

“When I decided that I was going to run, I decided that was when I was going to accelerate” the moving process, Dove testified.

A private investigator testified that he surveilled the Pasadena home for weeks and did not see any cars, people or other evidence of Dove living there until last week. The investigator, Stephen Anderson, said he affixed tape to the front door jamb and the garage door in February, and the tape remained attached for over a week.

The investigator said he had been called by state Sen. Clarence Lam, an ally of Simmons’, and asked to conduct surveillance of Dove. Lam, D-Anne Arundel and Howard, said in a statement that Dove “was trying to game the system.”

“We had gathered overwhelming evidence that [Dove] had not moved from his current home in District 31 at the time that he was certified as a candidate,” Lam said. He said that Dove “made a farcical case that he was planning to move there, which was “just not good enough under the law.”

Dove testified that he slept at the Pasadena home Sunday night into Monday but said he had done so because he knew he’d be asked by Simmons’ attorney, Robbie Leonard. Otherwise, Dove said, he had been staying there every other week.

“What we have here is a lot of cleanup work,” Leonard said during closing arguments, suggesting that Dove hadn’t sought a contractor or attempted to list his Gambrills residence on the market until after the first hearing before Thompson.

Alston, meanwhile, characterized the litigation as “an attempt to suppress the voters’ will,” calling the issue of Dove’s residency a “truly political question.”

State election law directs candidates to list their current address when they file to run, and if that address isn’t in the district, the Maryland State Board of Elections can prevent them from running. The Maryland Constitution only requires candidates to live in the district for six months before their election — Dove’s legal team argues that means the Nov. 8 election. A majority of the Maryland Supreme Court found that Simmons’ claims that Dove failed to satisfy the residency requirements under state law were ripe for review.

“The Constitution is clear,” Alston said after the hearing, adding that Dove has met the requirements for candidacy by proving he had a residence in District 12 and intended to make the Pasadena home his primary abode.

Thompson wrote in his opinion that he found Dove “has a future intent to reside in Pasadena” and is “taking steps to properly live” there. But Thompson also found “he has not yet abandoned his domicile” in Gambrills.

If in February, when Dove filed his candidacy, he did not live at the Pasadena residence, “then it was a misrepresentation,” Thompson wrote.

This story has been updated.