Residency Comments

Thursday, July 10, 2008
Dick Motta of Phillipsburg is tilting at windmills.
State Sen. Jesse Laslovich, D-Anaconda, is not a legal resident of his Senate district and therefore should be disqualified from running for re-election, his Republican opponent said in a formal complaint filed this week.Dick Motta, a retired businessman from Philipsburg, filed the complaint Tuesday with the state commissioner of political practices.Sweet Home HelenaMotta said Laslovich, who works as a state attorney in Helena and owns a house there with his wife, has not been a resident of Anaconda or any other part of Senate District 43 for the required six months before the general election.
Actually, Laslovich need only live in the same County. This is the relevant section in Article V of the Montana Constitution:
Section 4. Qualifications. A candidate for the legislature shall be a resident of the state for at least one year next preceding the general election. For six months next preceding the general election, he shall be a resident of the county if it contains one or more districts or of the district if it contains all or parts of more than one county.
But you can see where Motta's coming from: Laslovich is supposed to represent SD 43 but for all intents and purposes is now a resident of Helena. See, a young man fresh out of school gets in the state legislature, and before you know it he's gotten a nice state job in Helena to go with it.
Laslovich has worked as an assistant attorney general in Helena since July 2007. He and his wife, Jill, also an attorney, bought a home in Helena in 2006 after she was hired by a law firm in Helena.Laslovich, who is registered to vote in Anaconda, listed his parents’ address when he filed to run for re-election in January.
He's not the only one. Word has it that former Rep. Kevin Furey spent precious little time in House District 91 after the got married and landed his own state job, even prior to his active duty with the Army Reserve.It kind of peeves some of the folks back home, but how can you expect a guy serve the public, support himself with a good state job and actually reside in his district all at the same time? And it's a slippery matter of proof where someone really lives.Clearly, this Motta guy is just being unreasonable.
Posted by Carol Minjares at 6:52 AM
Labels: 2008 election, Legislature
3 comments:
James said...
Clearly.
July 10, 2008 12:27 PM
Anonymous said...
Hey, Max Baucus doesn't live in Montana. So?
July 10, 2008 2:00 PM
Binky Griptight said...
Why not let the voters decide, rather than some bureaucrat (like the AG) or some tired old judge?Or, is wasting the administration and courts time part of a campaign these days?
July 10, 2008 7:52 PM

Monday, July 14, 2008
Residency Is All in Your Mind
Aha! The Missoulian's editorial writer ponders legislative candidate Dick Motta's complaint against Sen. Jesse Laslovich.
So how do the people Laslovich wants to represent feel about supporting a candidate who doesn't technically live there? Probably same as we in Montana feel about being represented by someone who doesn't live here. That would be U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, whose only claim to a home in Montana is his mother's residence. And for 11 years before he and his wife purchased that half, he didn't have any residence in Montana at all.That's in contrast to fellow U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, who rents a place in Washington, D.C., but returns to his farm near Big Sandy every weekend, and U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, who doesn't even rent an apartment in Washington. He sleeps on his office couch.
Heh! Good ol' Denny.
...it strikes us as the height of silliness that one's residency should hinge on one's intent. It boils down to the fact that elected officials make poor representatives if they don't have regular contact with the people they are supposed to represent.That's not to suggest that you should have to own a home to qualify as a candidate - but at the very least, the homes of family members you no longer live with should not count.What should matter is where you actually live right now - and we should make it clear to our legislative representatives that the statutory loophole that asks us to read candidates' minds in order to figure out where they live needs to be closed.
Does it matter that Laslovich has "gone Helena"? For right now, it's up to the voters to decide. Don't look for the next Legislature to do anything about this loophole.
Posted by Carol Minjares at 6:53 AM
Labels: 2008 election, Denny Rehberg, Dick Motta, Jesse Laslovich, Legislature, Max Baucus
2 comments:
Jim Lang said...
I live in HD 100 - is it true that neither the incumbent Republican nor the Democratic challenger lives in the district?
July 14, 2008 8:39 AM
Montana Headlines said...
Again, you do not have to live in the district -- you only have to live in the same county as the district.This is a very important allowance to make for the more heavily populated counties like Yellowstone and Missoula, since candidate recruitment is hard enough as it is. Someone who lives in the district generally has an advantage, since they start out with neighbors who know them, etc. But the distinctions are often fine ones, with a candidate who lives "outside the district" often just a few blocks away from the arbitrarily drawn district lines.Unless Helena and Anaconda are in the same county, Laslovich is in clear violation of the spirit of the rules -- even if the Commissioner of Political Practices, appointed by the current governor, refuses to enforce it by citing a technicality of "intent."
July 14, 2008 8:57 AM