A candidate’s time abroad has sparked a residency complaint from his opponent.
Robert Stelzer is part of a crowded Democratic field vying to replace State Rep. Mike Daus, a victim of term limits, in the south St. Louis district that lies roughly between Tower Grove Park and Delor Street.
But, for much of the last seven years, Stelzer, a lawyer, has been far away from the district — very far.
He’s been teaching and studying international law in Germany, England and Holland off and on since 2001.
His globe-trotting curriculum vitae prompted a complaint to the Secretary of State from opponent Mike Colona, who questioned how Stelzer could meet the residency requirements to run with so much time across the pond.
Stelzer counters that, despite his time away, he never changed his residence from his parent’s home in the Southwest Garden neighborhood.
He says he has been in St. Louis permanently since 2006, though he was teaching in Amsterdam for two months last fall.
“It would be as if a businessman went on a trip to China for two months,” Stelzer says.
Stelzer, 41, comes from a political family. His dad, Jack, ran unsuccessfully for state rep many years ago and is now the Democratic committeeman in the Eighth Ward. Brother Mike is a Circuit Court judge, and brother Matt works for tax collector Gregory F.X. Daly.
Though residency challenges can be very tough to prove, State Rep. Connie Johnson removal from the ballot for State Senate showed they are not impossible.
Still, it would appear that making a similar case against Stelzer would be difficult. There was a mound of documentation — a change of address form, a W-2, an insurance policy — that indicated Johnson had left her district.
All Stelzer has to prove is that as of last November — a year before the general election — he was a resident of the 67th District.
If the Secretary of State is planning to take action on the complaint filed by Colona, they’ve got until May 27th, the deadline for ballot certification, to do so.
Meanwhile, Stelzer is hoping to profit from his time in Europe. He is part of a group opening up a bar in the area — tentatively named the Amsterdamer.
And, no, it’s not that kind of Amsterdam bar — it will be geared, Stelzer says, to soccer fans.
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