The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ended once and for all former Austin City Council candidate Laura Pressley’s challenge of the 2014 election that put Greg Casar on the council. But the justices found a lower court’s order sanctioning Pressley for filing a frivolous suit went a step too far, leading them to reverse those sanctions.

Casar won 64 percent of the vote in the 2014 District 4 council election, the first under the city’s district-based 10-1 system. Pressley contested the outcome, claiming various voting irregularities. Casar has since won re-election, in 2016, over two lesser-known candidates. Pressley did not run against him a second time.

The election contest itself is moot, the court said, because the term of office being questioned already has concluded.

“It’s been a long time coming for this to be behind us,” Casar said Friday. “We’ve been defending Austin’s elections from conspiracy theories.”

BACKGROUND: Laura Pressley appeals 2014 election challenge to Texas Supreme Court

Texas’ 3rd Court of Appeals rejected Pressley’s election contest in late 2016 and upheld a trial court’s decision to levy $40,000 in sanctions against Pressley and $50,000 against her former attorney, David Rogers. The Supreme Court this week called those sanctions “an abuse of discretion.” Her claims had some factual basis, the court said.

Pressley filed her election contest after demanding a recount of the 2014 race, which confirmed Casar won by 1,291 votes. She argued the electronic “cast vote records” did not count as ballot images to recount and claimed various election irregularities. Casar’s legal filings said there was no evidence of those and asked for sanctions against Pressley and Rogers.

Despite the contest itself being moot, Rogers called Friday’s decision a victory for reversing the sanctions and acknowledging that the case wasn’t completely baseless.

“The Supreme Court showed its usual sagacity — they saw wisely to the heart and merit of the case, and they weren’t bamboozled by any of the demagoguery that was put forward by the opposing counsel,” he said. “The Supreme Court said: 'Well, (the case) might not be winning, but it’s not frivolous.’”

Casar said he wished the sanctions had been upheld, but said that was not the core of the case.