Senator Max Baucus No Longer Lives In Montana
November 20th, 2007 at 04:57pm Matt Margolis
Democratic U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, who is running for his sixth term next year, didn’t own a home in Montana for 11 years of his 29-year Senate career.State Republicans say Baucus has become a full-time Washington, D.C., politician who no longer really lives in Montana. They say the issue will come up in the upcoming campaign.
Baucus now owns one-half of his mother’s Helena home, and Baucus and his wife, Wanda, are listed on the home’s title as owners, records show.
Baucus spokesman Barrett Kaiser said the senator has always considered the house where he grew up “home” and returns at least twice a month.
“He’s called it home for as long as he can remember,” Kaiser said. “It’s the house where his son comes to visit his grandmother and it’s likely where Max’s grandchildren will come, too.”
Chris Wilcox, executive director of the Montana Republican Party, said it’s wonderful that Baucus comes back to Montana to visit his mother, but said it’s not the same thing as actually living here.
“The rest of our congressional delegation still keep their lives here, their families, their business operations” he said. “I think that’s an important difference.”
The issue of residency has certainly come up in the past and has been used by both Democrats and Republicans. When Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts, his Democrat opponents saw the threat he was and tried to claim he wasn’t a legitimate resident of Massachusetts, because he had been living temporarily in Utah while he was running the Olympics. Hillary Clinton chose an easily winnable state (New York) to move to in order to run for the Senate. After Tom DeLay retired from the House, Democrats sought (successfully) to keep him on the ballot in Texas despite the fact he had established residency in Virginia — never mind the fact he dropped out of the race.
How will this play out? Considering how rarely Democrats are held accountable for their corruption, I have little faith that a question of residency will actually do much harm to Baucus’s reelection efforts.
Entry Filed under: Democrats
12 Comments
1. westmich | November 20th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
I take pride in the fact that our rep has done the exact opposite. Pete Hoekstra is one of only a few members of Congress who does not have a residency in D.C. He sleeps on his office couch Monday through Thursday and flies home each weekend.
(BTW, no Type Key to login with?)
2. Casper | November 20th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Matt,
If you read the constitution, you will notice that there is no requirement that a senator or congressman own a home in their home state. If Sen. Baucus has been staying at the family home over the last 29 years, it doesn’t matter who owns it.
3. Ricorun | November 20th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
As far as I know, Brian Bilbray (who took over Duke Cunningham’s seat in April, 2006) still “lives” in his mom’s house in Carlsbad, CA, despite having two other residences outside the district (which he actually does own and has heretofore declared them as “primary residences” for tax purposes) — one in Alexandria VA and one in Imperial Beach, CA. So I guess residency is a relative thing — so to speak, lol!
4. phnx | November 20th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Casper,
It all depends upon how the voters of Montana view this. If he is painted as a Washington insider, who has lost touch with his state he is in trouble.
5. Casper | November 20th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
phnx,
You are right. I lived in Helena for four years back in the 80s and at that time Montanans were more worried about their senators staying in touch with what they wanted than where they lived.
6. Jay Gaultieri | November 20th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
Rick Santorum has been living in NoVa for years. The house he claims as his residence in suburban Pittbsurgh is rented out to someone else and any mail sent to Santorum at that address is returned stamped “Return to Sender”. It’s all moot now since Santorum lost in 2006, but he was always more popular with the talk radio-Fox news crowd nationally than he ever was with the voters of Pennsylvania.
7. Casper | November 21st, 2007 at 12:06 am
Jay Gaultieri ,
What does Rick Santorum have to do with this topic? He isn’t even in the senate anymore.
8. KCJ | November 21st, 2007 at 7:32 am
Casper, no one is making a constitutional argument. But it does seem interesting that lefties here are responding with “here’s a republican who may be doing the same thing,” as if that is their only line of defense
9. plainjane | November 21st, 2007 at 8:03 am
I will not comment on the Montana Senator because most of the threads here are Fox news fabrications. But with the ease of transportation and long holidays and vacations Congress gets, a Congressman’s butt needs to be back among his constituents as much as possible. There is no need for a permanent residence in DC.
10. Casper | November 21st, 2007 at 11:17 am
KCJ,
“But it does seem interesting that lefties here are responding with “here’s a republican who may be doing the same thing,” as if that is their only line of defense”
True, kind of like when anybody criticizes Bush, the first response is “Clinton did it too”.
11. KCJ | November 21st, 2007 at 1:07 pm
Casper, I believe that if people on the Left are going to criticize Bush for something than it is perfectly valid to point out that they accepted the same actions when they were carried out by Clinton.
What’s even worse is the clear hypocrisy when it comes to things that Clinton did that were worse — for instance, during Vietnam, Clinton actually dodged the draft while Bush joined the National Guard… To Democrats joining the NG was just the same as running off to Canada during the Vietnam War, but they never called Clinton a draft dodger, or questioned his foreign policy experience or ability to be Commander-in-Chief.
12. Jay Gaultieri | November 26th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Casper, Rick Santorum has been living in NoVa for years, including when he was a Senator.