Mourdock challenges Lugar to establish Indiana residence

WISHTV.COM

Jim Shella

Updated: Feb 15, 2012 11:44 AM

Richard Lugar fails to meet a constitutional requirement to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate according to his GOP primary opponent.

Richard Mourdock held a news conference in front of the Indianapolis home Lugar sold in 1977, his last Indiana residence.  Sen. Lugar now lives in Virginia and stays in hotels when he returns to Indiana. The Lugar campaign has rejected challenges to his residency citing an opinion from the attorney general that says he can vote from his old address, but Mourdock made a challenge to him this morning.  “Take that issue off the table, Mr. Lugar,” said Mourdock. “Find a residency, a residence, in Indiana and again make it perfectly clear, be totally transparent, that you are in fact an inhabitant.”

Mourdock cites a portion of the U.S. Constitution that says you must be an “inhabitant” of the state you represent to be elected to the Senate.

Members of the Tea Party, meantime, will hold a Statehouse event Thursday afternoon to announce the filing of a formal challenge to Lugar’s residency before the state Election Commission.

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