Commonwealth Court: Singer stays off ballot for city commissioner

City Commissioner Stephanie Singer's name will not be on the May 19 primary election ballot, the state Commonwealth Court ruled Thursday.

The court rejected Singer's appeal of a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge's ruling earlier this month, striking her name from the ballot.

Singer needed at least 1,000 signatures from registered Democrats on nomination petitions to be listed on the ballot. She filed 1,485 signatures but a review during a legal challenge found that just 996 of them were valid.

That left her four names short in her bid for a second four-year term.

Singer's lawyer, Charles Goodwin, was reviewing the ruling Thursday afternoon.  Singer is allowed to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

Singer on Tuesday equated her legal struggle to the 1965 beatings of civil rights marchers in Selma, Ala.  In an email asking supporters for donations, Singer wrote:

"The heroes of Selma in 1965 were fighting for the people of Philadelphia in 2015. Today, the weapons are not billy clubs and horses -- they are the courts and the media."

Singer also decried in her email the "slanted legal system" that removed her name from the ballot.

The three city commissioners are tasked with overseeing elections in Philadelphia.  Singer, a former ward leader and former math professor, ran as a reformer in 2011.

She served as chairwoman during the first year of her first term but was ousted by her two colleagues one day after the 2012 general election after clashing repeatedly with them and the commission's staff.

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