Mourdock: Senator Lugar Not Ind. Resident

Dick Lugar (left) and Richard Mourdock

(Indianapolis, Ind.) – Indiana State Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock is calling out incumbent Senator Richard Lugar, saying he's not an Indiana resident. 

Backed by the Tea Party group Hoosier for a Conservative Senate, Mourdock is challenging Lugar for the Republican nomination in the May 8 primary. 

Mourdock made the accusations Wednesday while standing in front of a home the senator lists as his legal residence in the 3200 block of Highwoods Court in Indianapolis, which Lugar sold in 1977. 

Lugar has kept that home as his legal residence because it was the last place he lived in the state. He currently lives in Virginia, but votes in Indiana.

Democrats are piling onto the argument that Lugar is no Hoosier.

“He’s admitted that he spends taxpayer money on Indianapolis hotels when he visits Indiana, but won’t disclose how much.  Indiana’s hardworking families deserve to know what their tax dollars are paying for,” said Indiana Democratic Party Chairman Dan Parker. 

David Willkie, political director for Lugar’s re-election campaign, said in an e-mail the senator still co-owns and operates his family’s farm in Marion County.

Willkie also said three different Indiana Attorneys General have also ruled in the past that situations such as Lugar’s are allowable.

Article II, Section 4 of the Indiana Constitution says "No person shall be deemed to have lost his residence in the State by reason of his absence, either on business of this State or of the United States." The Indiana Code, Section 3-1-21-3, Subsection 10, reads similarly.

LINKS:

Mourdock Files For US Senate Race vs Lugar

Ind. Treasurer Will Oppose Lugar