Clarified residency rules would help the political process.

Great Debates
1

News today is that Bobby Jindal has won the governor’s race in Louisiana. And while I’m happy about this, I am disturbed that Senator Breaux sat out of the race because his residency would have been questioned should he have run.

Now, it is true that Breaux had been living in Maryland for a while, but it is also true that residency in the State of Louisiana was so poorly defined for this purpose that even a good faith effort to satisfy the rules wouldn’t have been enough to avoid a challenge. And let’s remember that Breaux had represented Louisiana for years in both houses of Congress.

This issue comes up quite a lot. It was made an issue in the Santorum-Casey race because Rick Santorum lived with his wife and kids in suburban Washington - as do the majority of legislators, frankly. And while they did maintain a residence in Pennsylvania, it wasn’t deemed sufficient to nail down residency in some voters’ minds. (I do know there were issues with school funding, but I think this residency question would have come up even without that.)

It also was an issue in the Daschle-Thune 2004 Senate race. Of particular note there was the fact that the Daschles claimed a tax exemption on their DC property available only to DC residents.

I believe these controversies are happening too often, and usually are manufactured ones designed to limit the options that voters have and embarrass candidates who are trying to meet poorly defined requirements. As I mentioned above, Breaux chose not to run because just getting on the ballot would have been a nightmare for him, but the only thing state law says is that a candidate should be a citizen of the state, with citizenship poorly defined.

Therefore, I propose that states should require residency for a period before any election before a person may be elected to a position. Such a period should not be overly long - we ought to encourage people to become involved in civic life wherever they choose to live. Ninety days ought to cover it, and if voters decide a person doesn’t know the locality well enough, they have every right to vote against that person.

Furthermore, we have to accept that representatives are elected to represent us. The job description is pretty explicit on this score - they have to go to a state or national capitol to do so. I don’t see much bellyaching when our military members or foreign service personnel bring their families along to a remote posting, and yet some of us would just love for our congressmen to leave wife and kids behind and hole up in a boarding house like the old days.

We shouldn’t make prolonged family absence a job requirement for Congress. That would just ensure that decent folks leave this job alone, and the usual powerhungry workaholics chase after it.

Third, no representative should seek out any tax benefit or other perk that is not available to all residents of his home state or an explicit perk of his office. Seeking such should be an ethics violation at least, and might be more serious than that, depending. But clarifying matters in this fashion ought to make a senator from the Dakotas seeking a DC tax break a thing of the past.

Thoughts?

2

The worst thing that ever happened to American government was the introduction of air conditioning. This allows Congress to remain in session year-round.

I want my congresscritter to come home. I want his kids enrolled in the same schools as mine. I want his wife to deal with my local streets. I want him to have the hassle of our local building codes (yeah, I know - local vs. federal).

Residency requirements are a feeble attempt to ensure that we do not have representatives that just phone it in to the home office. I would rather only allow Congress to be open M-W, with the assumption that everyone heads home on Wednesday night to meet with the people that they represent.

3

Well, sure. But I’d sooner let voters decide if a representative isn’t home enough then have this handled by weird threats of lawsuits.

Firmer rules would remove this from courtrooms and place it into the political arena where it belongs.

That being said, I think criticizing a politician for having his family near is pointless.

4

Residency rules are an expression of voter desires, however. New Yorkers don’t mind carpet baggers, but other states are strict about who can represent them.

Now, perhaps we should just let anyone represent any state - no residency requirements at all. That would require trusting both the voters and the system.

I am willing to trust the voters (not really, but this is a democracy of sorts). I do not trust the system. The system has its problems that we try to control through reporting requirements, finance reform, gerry-mandering laws, etc. Residency requirements are part of this control equation - we are trying to ensure that the folks who work for us in DC continue to truly work for us.

5

Then states should set them accordingly. I’m open to that. But however they do so, they should do so clearly.

6

Please be aware that states are empowered only to set residency requirements for state office, not for service in Congress. The requirements for service in Congress are set in the United States Constitution, and states cannot add to or subtract from them. With respect to residency, the only federal requirement is that members be an “inhabitant” of the state electing them at the time of their election.

This is so nebulous as to be unenforceable. No member-elect of Congress has ever been denied a seat under this clause. Nor am I convinced that more exact wording could or should be drawn–the concept of “habitation” is inherently slippery for people whose job requires ten months per year away from home.

7

They should set up Virtual Congress[sup]TM[/sup]. Each representative would have a high-def stand-in screen at his or her place in the chamber, they would physically remain at home or local office, and congressional business would take place via a massive Telepresence session. This would allow them to stay in their districts, available to their constituants and not masses of lobbyists (who could still contact lawmakers via videoconference or other ways).
Cost saving from fewer plane flights. Fewer missed votes due to absences. Etc.

8

Is it so nebulous that a senator from South Dakota can get a tax break reserved for residents of the District of Columbia?

That would be pretty nebulous.

9

Another example of this issue was Vice President Cheney’s residence in 2000. Cheney owned a home in Dallas and had been been living in Texas for quite some time. But this would have prohibited him from running for Vice President beside George Bush who was also a Texan. So Cheney switched his residency back to Wyoming. Admittedly, Cheney had real connections with Wyoming - he was born there, had been elected to office there, and owned a house there. But there was a lawsuit during the campaign alleging that Cheney was ineligible to run.

The same issue had come up in 1980 during the brief period when the idea of Gerald Ford being nominated as Ronald Reagan’s Vice Presidential nominee was being discussed. Ford, like Reagan, was a California resident at the time and would have had to move his residency if the nomination had gone through.

10

Note that Cheney would have been eligible to run, but the Texas electors could not have voted for both Bush and Cheney (Article 2 - The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves.) Since no party wants to handicap their candidates by automatically excluding possible electoral college votes from the get-go, they select candidates from different states (or jigger their residency to the same end).