Bitter Dregs?
Well, Mike Pence and his wife are homeless and couch-surfing in the expensive houses of current Indiana officials, trying to stay one step ahead of domestic terrorists, no doubt.
That’s a bit sad and a bit hilarious, all at the same time.
As I mentioned in another thread, the “house” he was living in prior to moving to DC was the Indiana governor’s mansion. I don’t think the Pences have actually owned their own home for a long time. Essentially, they’ve been living in “public housing”. Of a very upscale sort.
How can any politician be so unprepared? I
t’s not like he was a regular worker who suddenly got laid off with a pink slip.
He’s known since Nov 6 that he’s going to have to re-locate.
Three months is enough time to buy a house.
This one’s understandable. He was obligated to keep up the fiction that he wouldn’t be needing a new house up until Jan 6th.
Is there a residency requirement for holding office in Indiana? Many states have something like this as a prerequisite for being an elected official in specific jurisdictions. Some longtime national politicians who have effectively relocated themselves and their families fulltime to DC still maintain shitty little apartments back in their “home” districts in order to meet this qualification. Wouldn’t the Pences at least have needed to keep up the pretense of being Indiana residents during his governorship?
I decided to answer my own question. And the answer is… nobody’s sure?
This article says the Pences sold their house when he became governor. They moved full-time into the governor’s mansion and treated that as their official address.
Then this article says Pence continued to use the Indiana governor’s mansion as his permanent address of record during his Vice Presidency, in order to preserve his status as an Indiana resident for voting and other purposes. The state has ambiguous rules about residency; if you leave the state for extended government business, you can treat your last house as your address of record, even if you don’t live there or own it any more. However, the same rule also says that, under those circumstances, if your intent is to stay in the other location “indefinitely,” you can lose your resident status.
So, officially, Pence is kind of in a gray area, in terms of where he actually “lives.” If someone with a lot of free time and money for attorneys wanted to raise a legal challenge, they could probably cause some trouble for him (and establish case law on a largely untested question), but unless that happens, he’ll probably just float along until he announces where he’s settling down.
As much as I like the idea of tweaking the Pences for voter fraud, I don’t think 4 or 8 years is “indefinitely”. If there was a rule that the Prez and VP were designated residents of DC, I’d be fine with that, but there isn’t, so the Prez and VP generally vote in their “home” state where they don’t live.
I do find it refreshing that a top level politician doesn’t own multiple homes, just for the hell of it.
Long serving Indiana Senator Richard Lugar ended up being defeated in his 2012 primary over this issue. He hadn’t owned a residence in the state for 35 years, and his local election board initially found that he was no longer eligible to vote there for lack of residency. This was later reversed, but the political damage was done – in the minds of voters he was a creature of the beltway who spent more time touring the world on foreign junkets than he did back home in Indiana.
Yes, in my hometown jurisdiction, too, there is this aspect for defining domicile: you may not be living here, but is there evidence that barring other circumstances, the reasonable expectation is of your returning? Then you can claim domicile based on your “last known address” even if it’s not your home residence any more. It also helps if things like bank accounts continue to be in-state.
Also IMO the Pences may want things to cool off a little before becoming a stationary target.
Buy one rather ordinary house, very publicly move into it, then sneak out the back at 3am & go live elsewhere while computers keep the lights changing at random until the arsonists Patriots :eyeroll: show up 2 weeks later to burn them out.
Tots and Pears.
Man with no job, home, takes Virgin Island vacation.
I’ve heard that a cutout of Michael Jordan on a model train track is very effective, too.
Okay, now I really, really, REALLY want a remake of Home Alone starring Mike Pence as two guys in MAGA hats are trying to break in to get him.
See them slip on ice while he fist-pumps, then taunts them before climbing into a tree house.
I was thinking more like the Dukes’ (Trading Places) cameo in Coming to America (add red MAGA hats to Pence and Trump)…
Now this does conjure up some hilarious images. (Imagining pence with both hands on the sides of his face, mouth hanging open)
I pretty much think that is over and done with. It’s been over a month since the event, and things have cooled down considerably.
Yeah, I agree. It’s important to realize that we’re not looking at a grassroots army of the downtrodden. Many of these folks are petty-bourgeois who actually have property and jobs, something to lose. Now that they understand that they’re an unpopular minority, and Trump has left them twisting in the wind, most of them will quietly get new hobbies.
I’m sure in a couple of years we’ll see the McVeigh-style lone wolves attempting a big attack, and white supremacists are also a worry that bears observation and investigation. Especially in law enforcement and the military. That does bear some watching.
But the “Trump Army?” I’m pretty sure that’s over and done with.