Cunningham Successor Faces Legal Controversy, Too (Bilbray) CA-50

[rumpel]

By Thomas D. Williams
t r u t h o u t | Report

Wednesday 25 October 2006

San Diego Republican Congressman Brian Bilbray, now in the midst of a California elections campaign, is trapped in a spinning political and legal controversy over whether his prime residence is in California or Virginia.

The issue became a nagging question for Bilbray, 55, a surfer, most of whose roots are in California, as a result of a sworn statement he made in a Fairfax County, Virginia, 2005 deed of trust. It made 8930 Linton Lane, Alexandria, Virginia, his "prime residence."

After losing a California Congressional election to Susan Davis in 2000, Bilbray soon moved to Washington, DC, to become a lobbyist. He represented tribal issues, a border-sewage treatment project and an anti-illegal immigration group, the Associated Press reports.

Land records show he retains that Alexandria residence, while also using and listing family residences in Imperial Beach and Carlsbad, California, where the Bilbrays report they began living when he once again successfully ran for congress in a special election earlier this year. A call Tuesday to the Alexandria, Virginia, Real Estate Division confirmed he still owns the property there.

The battle of words over his residence has swirled off and on for almost six months, yet no public official responsible to the voters in California has ultimately decided legally, once and for all, where Bilbray's prime residence is. Nevertheless, it is essential that Bilbray be a legal resident of California to not only run for office, but to vote.

Some officials involved with the controversy agree it could be much simpler, less expensive and time consuming to resolve whether a contender is qualified to be a candidate before he is elected, rather than afterwards. Special elections in California have an estimated cost of over $30 million, and state reimbursement to a locality has reached as high as $43 million. Those are figures released by a 2006 report from the Institute of Governmental Studies for the University of California at Berkeley.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/102506R.shtml

[nicknameless]

1. .

K&R

[kster]

2. K NR....nt

[autorank]

3. Paging Mr. Bilbray, Paging Mr. Bilbray...seems he's not here...in his

DISTRICT. What a comeuppance (have never printed that word;)

He's got Abramoff problems, now it's his locality that's at stake. He's been bad. Straight to bed,
no milk, no cookies.

Quel domage