What makes a candidate eligible to run, and who decides if they’re not?

A clown is running to be Ludlow’s mayor. Literally.

Paul Hallinan Miller is a former Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus Clown and the face of both Bircus Brewing and Circus Mojo, which provides training in circus performance.

Miller also filed to run for the Ludlow mayoral seat next year. His platform, he told LINK nky, would focus on affordable housing, creating jobs and dissolving the city.

“My platform is we shouldn’t exist,” Miller said. He argues the city ought to be absorbed either into Fort Wright or Covington.

Can a mayor do that? Well, no, not directly. Dissolving the city would require a voter referendum, according to Kentucky law, but such a referendum would likely get more traction with an official’s endorsement.

Miller is a fixture around the Ludlow community, known for his brewing and circus training. He’s even given a TEDx talk. Yet, he’s been in and out of court for years in various lawsuits involving his businesses entities. What’s more, shortly after he announced his campaign, LINK nky learned that many people in the city were under the impression that he did not, in fact, live in the city, even though his businesses were located there.

Even if you don’t live in Ludlow, Miller’s candidacy presents quite a few quandaries about how elections work in Kentucky. LINK nky investigated the question of Miller’s residency, which in truth gave rise to even more questions.

Miller’s candidacy paperwork lists his address as a building on Oak Street, which, according county property records, is owned not by Miller as an individual but by one of his businesses, the Institute of Social Circus and Training Center. This property is currently tied up in a lawsuit with the city, but the land on which the building sits is zoned for residential use.

The property listed on his voting registration, on the other hand, is part of the old Doxol Propane Plant on Highway Avenue, the main building of which is covered in a distinct bright blue paint. Bircus purchased the property in 2019, and it achieved National Historic Register Status in 2023. The area where the property is located, however, is not zoned for residential use.

Finally, Miller’s voting records show he changed registration addresses in August from a property in Park Hills to the Oak Street address. The property owner of the Park Hills address is currently listed as Miller’s ex-wife, whom he divorced in October, according to court records. Miller changed his registration address again on Nov. 17 to the address on Highway Avenue.

Finally, LINK nky requested his driver’s license information through the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet as way of assessing his residency, but news organizations can’t legally access those records. Miller showed LINK his application materials, however, and the address on those documents shows the Oak Street address.

So, the evidence LINK nky has seen seems to suggest that Miller does, in fact, live in Ludlow.

Miller affirmed this when the discrepancies were pointed out to him: “I live in Ludlow,” he said.

Still, Miller’s case opens questions about elections: Can candidates and voters use business addresses on election paperwork? What role do county clerks, who field election papers, have in assessing said papers’ legitimacy?

And why is one of the properties he lists on his paper work in a lawsuit with the city?

Bona fide candidates

A mayor must be a resident of the city where he holds office for at least a year prior to his being elected, according to state law.

Who verifies that residency?

Kentucky legal opinion is clear on the role of county clerks when it comes to assessing candidacy paperwork. Essentially, it’s not the clerk’s role to assess a candidate’s legitimacy; it’s the voters’. But what does this actually mean in practice?

Turns out this question has come before the courts before, and there have been several cases in Kentucky that have established this precedent. The Attorney General’s Office has also issued its own opinions on the issue in the past. The statute (i.e. a written law passed by the Kentucky General Assembly) that governs clerks’ duties states that they must accept a candidate’s filing if it is “regular on its face.” This phrasing is admittedly vague, but it’s the foundation of many of the legal opinions, both from judges and the Attorney General, affirming candidate filings.

One AG opinion from 1977, for instance, reiterates the statute that when someone submits candidacy paperwork, “it must be accepted by the county clerk if the filing paper is regular on its face.” Subsequent AG opinions uphold this, and the 1977 opinion elaborates on the purview of county clerks.

“The Supreme Court of Kentucky has held in a number of cases that when a candidate’s filing papers are substantially correct in form and in the manner prescribed by the statutes, it is not within the providence of the clerk to go behind the paper to determine whether it was rightfully done or to question the qualifications of the candidate,” the 1977 opinion elaborates, citing case law.

So, what if someone believes a candidate isn’t qualified for office? Short answer: Take them to court. Voters and candidates’ opponents can sue a candidate in circuit court if they believe that candidacy is unlawful. This is called a bona fides (which roughly translates to “in good faith” in Latin) challenge.

Bona fides challenges have happened before in Northern Kentucky. One, for instance, occurred last year in Crescent Springs after a city resident sued two candidates, Carol McGowan and Chad Longbons, for allegedly gathering improper signatures for their candidate petitions. Judge Kathy Lape later struck down this challenge.

What about using business addresses? And what counts as a residency?

This is a little harder to tease out. The AG ruled in 1965 that voters could not list a business address as places of residency, but that opinion was in regard to a law that has since been repealed. A current law stipulates that “a voter’s residence shall be deemed to be at the place where his or her habitation is, and to which, when absent, he or she has the intention of returning.” That includes addresses for shelters for people who are homeless. That law does not speak about candidates, however.

Miller in office, Miller in court

Miller was up front with his criticisms of both Ludlow’s city government and Northern Kentucky’s overall political structure, which he described as “immature” at best and bloated with corruption at worst.

He pointed to the conflicts and scandals that have characterized the Ludlow city government recently as justification – from a city council member licking City Manager Scott Smith earlier this year to conflicts over the same city manager’s pension benefits, which included another (former) council member getting arrested, to tax increases to what he described as a generalized institutional rot at the both the county and city level, which he contends has prevented small business owners like him from flourishing.

“There’s so many little fiefdoms that everybody runs, and it is really wasteful and provides for some people to abuse their power,” Miller said.

When asked if he was worried that the ambiguities of his papers might put him at risk for a bona fides challenge, Miller replied, “I expect a challenge… I cannot wait for a day in court.”

Miller has, in truth, spent many days in court. His current lawsuit involves the Oak Street property and several other Ludlow properties, which were deeded to the Institute of Social Circus and Training Center by the city in 2012 for the purposes of redevelopment. Miller had hoped to rehab the properties to later use to train circus performers. The deed that granted Miller, or rather his business, the property stipulated the center would occupy the property and not try to sell or transfer it within 10 years of accepting it without permission from the city.

Miller through the center later took out two mortgages on the properties, one through Home Savings Bank and the other through the Kentucky Tourism Development Finance Authority. The money from the second, valued at $100,000 (not including interest), was used to pay off debt owed to the finance authority by another one of Miller’s businesses, Circus Mojo. Miller got these mortgages without obtaining the city’s permission, the lawsuit contends.

“[The Institute of Social Circus and Training Center] took the properties for the sole purpose of using them as collateral to acquire assets to fund [the center] and its member’s personal business ventures,” the city’s complaint alleges.

This suit has slogged on for years through at least one failed settlement attempt, the separation of Miller and his attorney and multiple extension requests from parties involved.

Miller described the lawsuit as “a joke” and a contrivance by the city to keep tourism from coming into Ludlow.

Miller was involved in another, this time federal, lawsuit in the late 2000s between him and Chicago-based circus training company CircEsteem, which Miller actually helped found. As reported by Chicago news outlet the Reader, “the list of allegations includes trademark infringement, cyberpiracy, breach of duty and misappropriation of trade secrets.” Legal documents for this suit were not immediately available.

Ludlow’s current mayor is Sarah Thompson, who was appointed to the position in September after preceding Mayor Chris Wright resigned in August. Miller is the only candidate to have filed to run as Ludlow’s mayor, according to the Kentucky Secretary of State, as of Dec. 15.