A challenge to the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s budget, particularly the $1.55 billion deficit from several years ago, has failed in Commonwealth Court.

A seven-judge panel dismissed a petition filed by state Rep. James Christiana and businessmen Matthew J. Brouillette and Benjamin Lewis, seeking declaratory judgment that Gov. Tom Wolf and other state officials violated the Pennsylvania Constitution by closing fiscal year 2016 to 2017 with a deficit and enacting an appropriations bill for the next fiscal year that the petitioners claimed exceeded the annual revenue.