Utah held its primary (for office other than president) on June 24. Jason Chaffetz defeated incumbent Chris Cannon in the Republican primary, for the U.S. House, 3rd district. Chaffetz had been criticized during the campaign because he doesn’t live in the 3rd district. The U.S. Constitution forbids states from requiring candidates for the U.S. House to live in any particular district. However, it is considered unwise (for public relations reasons) for candidates to run in districts, if they don’t live in that district.
Chaffetz lives two miles from the boundary of the 3rd district. The 3rd district is centered on Provo, plus the southern suburbs of Salt Lake City, and is an overwhelmingly Republican district. Chaffetz lives in Alpine, which is in Utah County. Although most of Utah County is in the 3rd district, a small part of that county, including the city of Alpine, is in the 2nd district. Thanks to Rob Latham for this news.
Living 2 miles out of the district isn’t all that bad compared to some of the worst transgressions in regards to carpetbagging. Anyways, Alpine will be in Chaffetz’s district in 2012 (when Utah gets an SLC-centered district and 3 Republican districts)
Chaffetz gets to have a higher claim of fame than having a father who was married to Kitty Dukakis (John Chaffetz Dukakis was the son of that father and Kitty Dukakis). Another fun note: Jason Chaffetz supported Michael Dukakis in 1988.
There’s no fun third party notes on Chaffetz though. That I know of.
Thank God Cannon is gone. Maybe he can get a job in Mexico, since he like the illegals so much.
I don’t see how people can predict what the Utah congressional district boundaries will be after the 2010 census. Even if the Utah legislature did pass a law a few years ago saying what the 4 US House districts would have been if Congress had given Utah a 4th seat in 2007, won’t the 2010 census have new population data that will mean another map will need to be passed? But thanks for all the interesting stuff about the Dukakis-Chaffetz family connection.
SLC getting a district on the four district map is pretty much expected (the exact drawing of that district is not predictable though). But, it seems like a bit of a courtesy for Chaffetz’s house to be in his district when the actual 2012 map is drawn. (And unless Utah likes getting sued, they’ll draw and approve a new map for 2012)
The plan they approved in 2006 split as follows
1st: Northern Utah, majority of voters in Davis and Weber Counties
2nd: Salt Lake County
3rd: Eastern Utah, 2/3rds of voters in Utah County (Chaffetz’s home county). Over 80% for Bush in 2004.
4th: Western Utah/SLC Burbs, 2/3rds of voters in Salt Lake County with the district going all the way to the Arizona stateline.
Plan L (the name of the map they picked in 2006) is a good enough guess of the general theme of the 2012 map.
I always thought the most interesting thing about running for office in a district that you don’t live in is that you can’t vote for yourself come election day.
So, I could run for Congress as a candidate in any House district in my state, or any House district anywhere in the US?
Under three US Court of Appeals rulings, it appears that no state can keep anyone off its ballot (for Congress) on the grounds of the candidate’s residency. They can live anywhere in the world, but they must be old enough, and U.S. citizens.
In 2006, the 5th circuit ruled that the U.S. Constitutional provision that states can only elect residents to represent them in Congress is meant to apply to the candidate’s residence on election day itself. Therefore, Tom DeLay was eligible to be on the Texas ballot (even though he had moved to Virginia). The 5th circuit said no one could predict the future, and no one could know where he would be living on election day, so his residence in the middle of 2006 was immaterial. Therefore, although he was free to withdraw (and he did), the Republican Party of Texas could not replace him with a new nominee. The law said parties could only replace nominees if the original nominee was ineligible.
In 2000, both the 9th and 10th circuits ruled that candidates need not be registered voters, in order to run for Congress.
Your ‘home’ state. [Which is a joke as most folks out side of the central fly over, are such transients, here, there, every where, kinda like Americans have always been.]
I bow to Richard’s expertise, but have heard other wise!
As far as I can tell, most countries have no residency requirements for legislators, even when they are elected by district or region.
Of course, voters are free to take a candidate’s residency into account when deciding who to vote for, but the election laws don’t make that decision for them ahead of time.
That seems sensible to me. I want the right to vote for whoever I think will represent me best.
In any case, the residency status of the many — if not most — members of Congress who essentially live in D.C., Maryland or Virginia is legal fiction.
Here in Montana an incumbent who while in office, got married, bought a house(b4 he got the job) and got a job in another district. His wife also works there. He still lists his former address as his current address. Claims his job is temporary and nothing else. He’s leaving it to his supporters to assume that his intent is to move back to the district. BTW, “back” is his parents house. He and his wife never lived as a couple,married or other wise, in the district. He is registered to vote in the district, so he can vote for himself. But his wife can’t since she is registered where they actually live. Besides being a senator(he chairs the Senate Judicial and the Ethics Committees) his temporary job is assistant to the Attorney General of Montana. Sweet, no?
One more piece to add to Richard’s court listings:
From the holdings of U.S. TERM LIMITS, INC. v. THORNTON, 514 U.S. 719 (1995):
(b) So too, the Constitution prohibits States from imposing congressional qualifications additional to those specifically enumerated in its text. Petitioners’ argument that States possess control over qualifications as part of the original powers reserved to them by the Tenth Amendment is rejected for two reasons. First, the power to add qualifications is not within the States’ pre-Tenth-Amendment “original powers,” but is a new right arising from the Constitution itself, and thus is not reserved. Second, even if the States possessed some original power in this area, it must be concluded that the Framers intended the Constitution to be the exclusive source of qualifications for Members of Congress, and that the Framers thereby “divested” States of any power to add qualifications.
This is easily read to eliminate any districting requirements.
Is Frank MacKay the Chairman of the Republican Party now too?
Utah originally drew a 4-district plan after the 2000 Census when they were still pursuing legal action to gain a 4th representative.
In late 2006, there was a proposed deal that would give Utah a 4th representative and the District of Columbia a voting representative. Utah called a special session to draw 4 district. Since they would in effect need congressional approval, they avoided drawing the districts in too partisan a manner.
When the Democrats took control of the House in 2007, they brought the Utah-DC proposal up, but required that Utah elect its 4th representative at large, and refused to make an amendment for 4 districts in order. Since there would be no way to keep the Senate from adding a redistricting amendment, I suspect that the whole exercise was a publicity scam by the Democrats.
in 2012, there would be no reason to hold back in drawing 4 Republican districts.
One precedent for this was Philip Barton Key, who lived near Georgetown in the District of Columbia, and who first occupied his summer residence about 12 miles outside the district in Montgomery County, Maryland on 18 September 1806; was elected on 6 October, and returned to his main residence in DC on 20 October. He returned to the Maryland residence on 28 July 1807 and returned to DC on 22 October. The 1st session of the 10th Congress commenced on 26 October 1807.
There had initially been an issue of living within a district, but the House committee considering the election contest had determined that Maryland law only required district residency for the 5th district in Baltimore, which elected two representative, but required one to live in the city and one in the county.
A secondary issue in the case was that Key had served in the British army during the Revolution, had been captured by the Spanish at Pensacola and had been paroled to London. He returned to America in 1885, but continued to be eligible to draw half pay from the British government. He had sold the half pay to his brother-in-law, who had received it until he had died. Key had made an effort about the time of his election to have the half pay cancelled.
Key argued that he had lived in Maryland, and had been elected to the Maryland legislature (before moving to DC), and continued to practice law exclusively in Maryland, and that the land he had purchased in Maryland had been previously owned by his wife’s relatives. He also noted that their were no political rights with regard to being elected a representative or voting for a representative attached to his residence in D.C.
Those who opposed his continued sitting in Congress said that it would set a precedent where powerful interests in Washington could send out people to be elected but who would then live in Washington.
Key was seated on a 57-53 vote.
Is Frank MacKay the Chair of the Independent Green Parties, also?
When Mike Crotts in Georgia was running for Congress, he had all kinds of problems over this very issue in the last election. If he had known about this law he could have saved a ton in legal expenses.