In Louisiana, Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is registered to vote in a house that her parents have been living in for decades, according to a Washington Post review of voting and property records as well as financial disclosures.
Landrieu’s January statement of candidacy with the Federal Elections Commission listed her home on Capitol Hill as her address. To qualify for the ballot in Louisiana she listed her family’s home in South Prieur Street as her home, the Post reports. The house is the primary residence of Landrieu’s parents, Moon and Verna, the Washington D.C. paper also reported.
That fact has got Republicans up in arms, trying to liken it to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), who The New York Times reported uses an address from two donors in Kansas when he needs to.
“I have lived at my home on Prieur Street most of my life and I live there now, when not fulfilling my duties in Washington or serving constituents across the state,” Landrieu said in a statement to the Post on Thursday.
Republicans argued that this is exactly the same as Roberts’ situation.
“Let’s call it what it is: She doesn’t live in New Orleans,” Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who is challenging Landrieu,” said. “She has an address she uses for voting purposes … She literally no longer lives here. She belongs in Washington, D.C. She just chooses Louisiana to get reelected.”
Rob Maness, another Republican challenging Landrieu, said that he was considering taking legal action against the senator.
“A U.S. senator shouldn’t be living with their parents,” Maness said according to the Post. “She’s got plenty of good pay, she’s employed, but she says she’s living with her parents? … It’s time for one of us from the state of Louisiana to go fill this seat.”
Maness has also written to the Louisiana Secretary of State asking him to investigate the senator’s residency.
The Nineland Partnership, which is owned by Sen. Landrieu, brother and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, and their other siblings, also own a house in Slidell which is on Lake Pontchartrain roughly 30 minutes away. The value of that house, according to the Post, is $504,530. Landrieu also owns a pair of undeveloped plots of land nearby valued, respectively, at $110,000 and $150,000.
Lawyers for Landrieu also provided the post with a memo that said “there is no legitimate question” that Landrieu does, in fact, meet the residency requirements as a senator.
“She is not disqualified simply because she maintains a residence in the District of Columbia in order to serve Louisiana.”
Election code for Louisiana says that a senator has to be “an inhabitant of Louisiana when elected.” A spokeswoman for the secretary of State said he does not make the final judgement on residency. A prosecutor has to challenge it in court and the deadline to challenge Landrieu’s residency is seven days after she filed her paperwork for her candidacy — so Friday.
“Saying Mary Landrieu is not really a resident of New Orleans, doesn’t really live in New Orleans— I don’t think will go very far,” Louisiana State University professor Robert Mann told the Post. “Nobody but the most partisan Republican will grab that flag and run with it.”
The TPM Polltracker average gives Landrieu a 2 point lead over Cassidy.
Geezzuz H. Kreist. Is there nothing these tricking repukes won’t complain about. In all the years Landrieu has been running for Senate, this issue has never once come up or been considered an issue.
They’re desperate for anything that they even think might help them in that race. Landrieu consistently embarrasses Louisiana Republicans.
Yes they are and she’s going to win her seat again. I hear the same b/s every time she’s up for re-election - about how she’s in a run for her life, yada yada, yada, and she wins handily every time - and not without thanks to the black community who always show up to vote for her. Always!!!
It’s not like she frequented prostitutes or anything.
Doesn’t Linsey Gram live with his mother