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Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), a perennial conservative target for his quaint belief in such outmoded foreign policy concepts as treaties, alliances, and nuclear-non-proliferation efforts involving nations other than Iran, has a new problem that’s actually an old problem for Members of Congress. He lives near his day-job in Washington, DC, having sold his house “back home in Indiana” in 1977, shortly after he was first elected to the Senate.
There are legal issues involving Lugar’s actual residency in Indiana (which do not look to be all that serious), and then, of course, the political issues, particularly at a time when voters are not especially enamored of congressional lifers, however distinguished.
The “doesn’t live here anymore” attack line on Members with little or no real physical connection to their states or districts has a long history. Sometimes it seems to work, as when then-House-Speaker Tom Foley of Washington State lost his seat in 1994 after a campaign in which his opponent ran ads (if I remember correctly) featuring pix of a post office box that was Foley’s “residence” in his district. Other times it doesn’t, as when one of the late Sen. Robert Byrd’s Republican opponents ran an ad showing the Taj Mahal and Byrd’s metro-DC home and asked: “What do these two places have in common? Neither one is in West Virginia.”
Someone very much alive and still in the news, Ricky Santorum, ran afoul of the residency issue just before his failed Senate re-election campaign of 2006, when it turned out his kids were enrolled in a Pennsylania-taxpayer-financed “Cyber Charter” school even though they lived full-time in the Hunt Country of Virginia.
The potential political damage associated with residency in DC (along with abbreviated voting schedules that make a Tuesday-Thursday work week in Congress feasible most of the time) has led a growing number of House members to bunk down in their offices and refuse to live in the Emerald City at all.
I don’t want to get all sympathy-for-the-devil on you here, but for the less wealthy members of Congress, and particularly House members who are perpetually running for re-election, life is not easy.
For every freshman House member sleeping on a cot in the Longworth Building, however, there are many, particularly in the Senate, who live like King Farouk. When I worked for Sam Nunn, I vividly remember getting a message from John Warner’s office to track down my boss in Georgia and get him to call the wealthy Virginian ASAP. To Nunn’s cramped little pied a terre in Atlanta, I bore a list of possible Warner stopping points that included his Watergate apartment, some house in Northern Virginia, some weekend house somewhere else, and then a hunting lodge.
It doesn’t appear Lugar is quite that loaded.
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Grumpy on February 10, 2012 12:54 PM:
A few years ago, my permanent congressman invited the press to witness him filing papers to run for his umpteenth re-election. While filling out the forms, he struggled to remember the ZIP code of the town where he supposedly had resided for several decades.
Re-elected anyway. And again and again.
Danp on February 10, 2012 1:01 PM:
He sold a house 35 years ago and still uses it as his legal residence for voting purposes. I don't see how that's not a problem. 35 years isn't just a tour of duty. Hillary actually bought a house in NY. By this standard, she could have moved in with a friend for a few weeks.
blondie on February 10, 2012 1:18 PM:
Most of the people ambitious (and power-hungry) enough to want to be in Congress REALLY don't want to live in their home states - they like being in DC, where they're big shots. (And so what if they have to pander and prostitute themselves? The price of admission, right?)
I've thought for 20 years that we should make Congress an electronic-only body - senators and representatives live in their home states, debate and vote electronically; committees can operate like traveling road shows, going around each member's district or state. They can come to Washington twice a year, once for the SOTU address, and in July (a great time to be in DC - not!).
Think of the cost savings - we could eliminate the multiple staffs (district and Capitol Hill) - and we might actually get people who want to serve, rather than rule!
SadOldVet on February 10, 2012 1:26 PM:
Naturally, those of the reich-wing who have deemed Lugar "insufficiently conservative" had no problems with Dan Coats renting a room in a boarding house as his legal residence to become senator in Indiana. After all, if you are a "real conservative" who is willing to change your legal/voting residence to a boarding house in Indianapolis from your million $$$ home in Virginia or the million $$$ retirement home you are building in the Carolinas; no problem!
That Indiana's last elected senator was a highly paid lobbyist for the wealthy (no U.S. citizenship required) speaks volumes for the idiocy of the voters in this state. That, plus the state dumbocrap leaders selecting a DINO to run against him!
If you think all of that is bad, think again!!! The next Governor in this state is going to be Mike Pence! No repuke primary opposition and already a huge amount of $$$ from wealthy backers! That Mike Pence - the 2nd stupidest person of the face of the earth (and we are still looking for number 1).
Arlington BigFish on February 10, 2012 1:48 PM:
I know Santorum should be a Ricky -- he looks like a smart-ass punk. He IS a smart-ass punk. But it infuriates me when the wingnuts call our president Barry; can we keep the dialogue on a little higher plane than they do?
Herb Levy on February 10, 2012 2:44 PM:
As a footnote to the Tom Foley story; a significant number of people who voted for Foley's replacement Republican voiced surprise when their new Representative did not have as much clout in the House when he got to DCntlyinv 300.000
Doug on February 10, 2012 9:23 PM:
Ah, for the dear old days, when the VP, I believe his name was Truman?, lived in a modest two-bedroom apartment with his wife and daughter. The joys of a simple life...
Perhaps some of the military housing in the VA/MD area could be made available for these poor suffering people? After all, aren't THEY serving their country too?
And yes, that last sentence was snark!