HARRISBURG — A citizen activist lacks the legal standing to force the auditor general to conduct a detailed review of how the Legislature spends about $300 million a year, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The decision effectively ends an effort by activist Gene Stilp to have the courts declare that Auditor General Jack Wagner has the authority and duty to audit the General Assembly.

Wagner may go to court to ask for such a declaration, the court ruled, but Stilp cannot claim "taxpayer standing" to pursue such a legal effort himself.

"The fact that Stilp has a different view of the auditor general's authority, or the role of his office, does not make him better situated than the official," Justice Ronald Castille wrote in the 14-page decision. "Nor do Stilp's self-serving assertions of his own status, and his gratuitous denigration of elected officials, make him an appropriate party to litigate any question concerning the duties attendant upon an elective office."

Stilp and others can ask the auditor general to pursue an audit of the Legislature, Castille wrote.

Beyond that, they can express their will at the ballot box, he said.

"The auditor general has been fighting me for 25 months on this case," Stilp said Friday. "And the person that's been fighting me for 25 months is not going to be asking the court for declaratory judgment to audit the Legislature. It's a dichotomy and it doesn't make much sense."

The lower Commonwealth Court had previously said Stilp could claim legal standing, but that court then ruled against Stilp on the underlying claim.

Commonwealth Court said that delegates to the 1968 state constitutional convention left open the details of who would audit the Legislature's financial accounts, and that lawmakers filled that void by establishing the Legislative Audit Advisory Commission two years later.

By overturning the decision that Stilp had the right to sue, the Supreme Court avoided addressing the question of whether the auditor general has the power or duty to conduct such an audit.

Two justices, Thomas Saylor and Max Baer, said they would have ruled similarly to Commonwealth Court. That made the Supreme Court vote against Stilp 7-0.

Wagner said Friday he believed Commonwealth Court ruled correctly in the Stilp case, and said his legal advisers believe taking the issue to the Supreme Court would be a waste of time.