Come on...Christ in a cupcake, already.
Lugar sold his Indianapolis home in 1977 when he was first elected to the Senate. Since then, Lugar has lived in Virginia, though he continued to use the street address of his former home as his "official" residence on everything from his voter registration to his driver's license.
State law stipulating that he doesn't lose his residency when he lives out of state on the state's business notwithstanding, how exactly does this differ from what Charlie White did? Isn't this voter fraud? ID fraud? If you or I moved from our current address, we'd be expected to provide a change of address to the BMV. And Charlie White got nailed for voter fraud for registering to vote with an address where he no longer lived. Guilty, guilty, guilty, Mr. Lugar!
On visits back to Indiana, he has stayed in hotels.Rules bar reimbursement for hotels in senators' home areas while the Senate is in recess. Andy Fisher, a spokesman for Lugar, said the office reviewed its records after being asked about the issue by the Washington online news outlet Politico.
Lugar blamed the problem on staff errors.
For which you are still ultimately responsible. Next.
By itself, a $4,500 error might not be much of a political headache, and Fisher stressed that Lugar has given back more than $5.4 million to taxpayers in unused funds over the years.
Big difference. The 5.4 mil was never spent on anything (and since FedGov operates in a deficit, it was play money anyway; Joe Taxpayer never saw any benefit from the refund). This $4,500 was spent illegally and until the Politico started asking questions about it, nobody ever planned to pay it back. Guilty, guilty, guilty.
Somebody needs to convene a grand jury and ask it why Mr. Lugar shouldn't be brought home to face charges of voter fraud, at the very least. If the law didn't provide a way for that "never lose your residency" thing to actually be properly implemented (i.e., let him use his primary constituent services office as his "home address"), then let's fix that law. Or even better, let's repeal the hell out of it and make these bastards own property in the state they represent.
While out driving this weekend, I actually saw some "Retire Lugar" signs and one Mourdock sign.
I'd have a Mourdock sign out except that my wife and I have long agreed to disagree about politics and only put signs out for candidates we both agree on. Thus the only sign we have ever had in our lawn was for Jon Elrod (who happens to be a personal friend).
Family around the corner has a Mourdock sign. It's the only one I've seen around here so far.