This Just In – Currently, if you want to run for high office and represent the people of your state, you needn’t bother actually living there.
Just a few examples from our recent election cycle – Herschel Walker is a Heisman Trophy-winning running back from the University of Georgia and registered to vote there in 2021. That same year he claimed a tax credit for a home in Texas that was only available for a primary residence.
This year, Walker offered himself to be a United States Senator from the state of Georgia. He’s now under investigation for voter fraud – not for the candidacy, but because he registered and voted in Georgia when his primary residence is in Texas.
That is in-person voter fraud. That’s a felony.
A similar dustup occurred in the Pennsylvania Senate race as the famous and very New Jersey-centered Dr. Mehmet Oz ran for that Senate seat claiming that a residence he had there (one of about 10 homes he owns) qualified him to serve.
At least he appeared to get the paperwork “right” and be somewhat consistent in his residency claims, but Dr. Oz had big problems as a candidate. He didn’t know much about Pennsylvania, accusations of his being a quack and a grifter stuck to him and were, well, true. He was (and I’m being diplomatic) a terrible campaigner and his opponent was the opposite.
The fact is, Oz was just trying to grab a Senate seat. He didn’t care where it was from.
Before any North Carolinian gets too snooty about these examples, I give you Elizabeth Dole – our one-term Senator (2003-2009). Dole changed her voter registration from Kansas (the home state of her husband, Senator Bob Dole) to North Carolina in 2001 so that she could run for office, representing our state, replacing the retiring Jesse Helms. It was well known and documented contemporaneously that she did not live here.
From CNN: “A former Republican Cabinet secretary, Dole was born and raised in North Carolina, but has not lived in the state for decades.”
When Bob Dole ran for president in 1996, he announced he would not simultaneously seek re-election to the Senate, which was permitted in Kansas. “Send me to the White House, or send me back to Kansas,” he frequently said.
America re-elected Bill Clinton instead. Bob Dole didn’t “go back to Kansas.” He returned to his very well-appointed apartment at the Watergate complex, where he had lived since 1972 (next door to Monica Lewinsky’s parents). Elizabeth Dole has lived there since she married Bob in 1975.
In 2001, when Elizabeth Dole moved her voter registration to North Carolina, she said that it was legit that she represent this state because she was born here and her mother still lived here. On that basis at that time, I could have run for Senate from the state of Connecticut, despite living here in North Carolina since the late 1970s. After all, I was born there and my mother lived there at the time.
When we offer ourselves for public service, it should be because we are well-suited to represent the geographical area in matters of public policy. It should be because we LIVE THERE.
Clearly stating where you live (and for how long) shouldn’t be a trick question on a job application. We are (THANK GOODNESS) now OUT of the election cycle. It’s a good time to look at rules like this concerning who can be on the ballot and how qualifications are verified. Election officials at the local level do the hard work of running free, fair elections. They should clean this mess up before something really sinister happens.
Jean Bolduc is a freelance writer and the host of the Weekend Watercooler on 97.9 The Hill. She is the author of “African Americans of Durham & Orange Counties: An Oral History” (History Press, 2016) and has served on Orange County’s Human Relations Commission, The Alliance of AIDS Services-Carolina, the Orange County Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, and the Orange County Schools’ Equity Task Force. She was a featured columnist and reporter for the Chapel Hill Herald and the News & Observer.
Readers can reach Jean via email – jean@penandinc.com and via Twitter @JeanBolduc
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