Could a technicality keep Rep. Gutknecht to his word about not serving more than six terms?

We had heard, but had not confirmed, that the Gutknecht campaign hired students to collect the petition signatures for him, paying them $10 per hour. That's great for the students but a little disingenuous for the congressman to claim that filing by petition proves he's a fiscal conservative, which he does on his campaign website.

Now comes a story that some of those signatures may not have been collected within the legal time frame:

Voter is challenging Gutknecht's candidacy

A voter has challenged the validity of First District U.S. Rep. Gil Gutknecht's campaign over a technicality, filing a lawsuit that alleges the six-term Republican congressman improperly filed his candidacy paperwork.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday with the Secretary of State's office, asks that Gutknecht's name be removed from the ballot because he used signatures that were collected outside of the July 4-18 filing period. The signatures were on a petition in support of his candidacy.

"My client's position is that [the signatures] have to be dated from the filing period," said attorney Alan Weinblatt, who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Louis Reitter, a resident of Olmsted County in the First District.

State law (subdivision 2 of section 204B.11) allows for an exemption to the filing fee if a candidate for Congress collects 1,000 signatures. Gutknecht, who has filed by petition since 1994, gathered 1,626 signatures this year, said his campaign manager, Nels Pierson. He said the campaign saw nothing in the law about when the signatures must be gathered.

"[The lawsuit] is just another stunt, which draws out Congressman Gutknecht's longstanding tradition of support gathered throughout the First District for his reelection through filing by petition," said Pierson.

Weinblatt said he was told Friday that Gutknecht has until Thursday to show why his name should not be struck from the ballot. It was not possible to confirm that with the Secretary of State late Friday night.

The article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune is here.