CALIFORNIA FOCUS5
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2023 OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“WHY CANDIDATE RESIDENCES WON’T BE A SENATE
ISSUE”
There’s no doubt that if interim
Democratic Sen. LaPhonza Butler, appointed in October to occupy the late Dianne
Feinstein’s California seat in the U.S. Senate, had opted to try keeping the
job for the next full term, her residency would have become a major campaign
issue.
That’s because Butler, who lived many
years in Los Angeles before moving to the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.
in 2021, had to re-register to vote in California before accepting her
appointment from Gov. Gavin Newsom. She moved to Maryland to do her former job
as head of the Emily’s List political action committee, a 3 million-member
group that raised more than $44 million for liberal female candidates in 2022.
It’s true, the U.S. Constitution does
not require senators to be registered voters in the states they represent, but
only to be “inhabitants.” Since Butler appears to have moved back to California
just before her appointment, she probably qualifies. But the whole point became
moot for Butler when she opted out of next year’s campaign.
Residency also could have been an issue
between Democratic Congress members Adam Schiff of Burbank and Katie Porter of
Irvine, the current polling favorites to face off next November in the race to
replace Feinstein long term. But it won’t be.
Porter led Schiff by one point in one
major survey late this fall and Schiff led Porter by three in another. Porter
leads among younger voters in both the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental
Studies poll and that of the Public Policy Institute of California, while
Schiff had wide margins among voters aged 50 and up.
Recent entrant Steve Garvey, the
Republican former all-star Dodgers and Padres first baseman, was about seven
points back of the pair in both surveys, just ahead of Democratic Rep. Barbara
Lee of Oakland.
What about the residency of Schiff and
Porter? (Lee and Garvey have no such issue.) First, residency can be important.
Only about 10 years ago, then-Democratic state Sen. Roderick Wright of
Inglewood lost his seat after being convicted of listing an old residence
within his district as his primary home, but a court ruled he actually lived
elsewhere. Former legislator and Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alarcon also
lost his council seat soon after it was discovered he lived outside his
district.
Schiff’s issue with this could have been
that mortgage records show he sometimes claimed a house in suburban Maryland as
his primary residence, while at other times stating a 650-square-foot
condominium he owns in Burbank is his primary home. In 2020, he listed the
Maryland house as a secondary residence. So, which is it?
Meanwhile, Porter, still on leave from a
teaching job at UC Irvine’s law school, lives in the school’s University Hills
housing development, where she bought a home at below market price in 2011,
part of UC’s effort to make housing affordable for new faculty members. Some
have questioned her right to keep living there after almost five full years in
Congress. When they eventually sell, buyers of such houses cannot reap the same
level of capital gains as people who buy market rate property elsewhere.
Whenever Porter decides to move out, she
will have to offer her four-bedroom house first to UCI faculty or staff or the
university itself. But her defeated 2022 reelection opponent, Republican Scott
Baugh, questioned her right to keep living there. Baugh currently seeks the
seat Porter will vacate at the end of 2024.
Other current non-teachers also live in
University Hills, including retired faculty and surviving spouses of faculty
members who have died.
Said Baugh in 2022, “(Porter) should
have given up this taxpayer subsidized housing benefit four years ago when she
was elected.”
But university policy says faculty on
unpaid leaves, like Porter, can stay.
Chances are that unless Garvey soon
makes a charge and slugs his way into a Top Two slot in the November election,
this will not become a big issue between Schiff and Porter, despite the awkward
positions of both.
Why? People who live in glass houses
usually are wise enough to avoid throwing stones.
-30-
Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His book,
"The Burzynski Breakthrough, The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the
Government’s Campaign to Squelch It" is now available in a soft cover
fourth edition. For more Elias columns, visit www.californiafocus.net
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