Putting this in GQ because there should be a factual answer.
There’s speculation that Mark Kelly might run for his wife’s House Seat. Giffords is clearly a Arizona resident. Born and raised there.
Mark Kelly lives in Houston. Up until a few months ago he worked at the Houston Space Center. His kids go to school there. I think he bought a house in Houston. He may have a suit and toothbrush at Giffords Arizona home but does that matter?
Does he magically get dual state citizenship because he married Giffords? Is he eligible to run for a House Seat in Arizona?
Its an interesting modern world question. You marry someone that technically resides in another state. That person never changes residency. So you have a family living in two states?
Citizenship requirements vary by state. He can transfer his place of residence to AZ fairly quickly, I would assume. There may be minimum residence time required. I couldn’t find it listed on the AZ AG site.
I always thought marriage would change residency. Since most laws are traditionally male oriented the wife gets her husbands residency. Much like she takes his name. Its not absolutely required, but is traditional.
But everything is turned upside down in the modern world. The idea of a married couple living in two different states wasn’t thought of unless they were separated.
The Constitution requires that Representatives be citizens of the United States for at least seven years, and “inhabitants” (not citizens) of the states they represent at the time of their election. The Senate has a parallel requirement, except that the citizenship requirement is nine years.
Both houses of Congress, in modern times at least, have construed “inhabitant” in a broad manner. If you can persuade the voters to elect you, Congress will generally seat you. There was mild public controversy over the election of Robert F. Kennedy and Hillary Clinton as Senators from New York, but both were promptly seated by the Senate.
In general, you just have to prove residence in the district at the time you’re elected. If Kelly owns a house in Arizona, he can make that his residence as long as he isn’t claiming he lives in Texas at the same time.
Think of Hillary Clinton: She was from Arkansas, and spent eight years in Washington, but then moved to New York to be Senator. Bobby Kennedy was a Massachusetts resident all his life (even when he was living in DC) but was able to move to New York and run as senator. Alan Keyes ran against Obama for Illinois senator despite living in Maryland up until 86 days before the election.
In the Robert Kennedy there was actually a court decision (not SCOTUS, I think, although it could have been) that essentially said, “Let the voters decide.”
I don’t have a cite handy, but I always thought that legal residency=voter registration: wherever you’re registered to vote is your ‘legal’ residence, regardless of where you actually spend the bulk of your time.
After all, many senators (like RFK) buy houses in the DC-Virginia area, since they’ll be in the area for at least six years. And Kennedy could certainly afford it.
Apparently residency rules are much more relaxed for Fed elections to Congress. That’s surprising because usually anything to do with the Feds is more complicated.