Lugar's not a Hoosier

In the face of upcoming elections, Indiana senator Richard Lugar is in the midst of what might be his first contested race in years.

Indiana’s well-known Republican senator isn’t overly threatened by competitors or opposition, although Treasurer Richard Murdock is facing off against him in the May 8th election with the support of many powerful fiscal and social action groups.

Instead, what’s putting Lugar in danger is the controversy surrounding him.

On March 15th, Indiana’s Election Board decided that Richard Lugar was no longer eligible to vote in Indiana.

When Lugar won his first election to Senate 35 years ago, he and his family packed up and moved to McLean, VA. They’ve been living there ever since.

However, they’ve been continuing to vote as Indiana citizens using the address of their former home, the home that they sold 35 years ago and that is now inhabited by someone else.

If that’s not voter fraud, we don’t know what is.

Evidently senators get special treatment. Where anyone would have almost certainly been slapped with some pretty serious charges, Lugar is simply being told he can’t continue to vote using that address.

Moreover, Lugar hasn’t only spent about $14,685 of taxpayer money on hotel bills in Indianapolis while visiting on non-work-related business. He’s also spent about another $70,000 of taxpayer money on hotel fees while the Senate was in session. And that’s only what’s on record since 1991.

Although Lugar is being forced to repay these funds to the government, the irony of the entire situation is priceless.

Every time Lugar comes back to Indiana, he bills the hotel to our taxpayer dollars. However, if he just hadn’t sold his Indiana home in the first place, he wouldn’t be having any of these problems. His right to vote wouldn’t be contested, and he wouldn’t have to find lodging every time he came back to the state he is supposed to be representing.

That in itself presents the largest problem.

Although the challenge to Lugar’s eligibility to vote was eventually resolved with the revelation that he could use a family-owned farm as a voting address, the fact is, Lugar is no longer really a Hoosier. Over the 35 years that he’s been in office, he’s only spent a total of 1,805 days, or about five years total, in Indiana.


He hasn’t lived here since the seventies. Even the farm he claims as his voting address is being rented out. How can he expect to accurately represent citizens of Indiana when he isn’t from here anymore?

Money and voting scandals aside, Lugar represents a larger problem that we as a nation have with career Congressmen and Congresswomen. When your primary residence is in the DC area and you spend the majority of your time there, it’s pretty easy to get out of touch with those you’ve been elected to represent in the first place.

If Lugar wants to keep representing Hoosiers, he needs to not only reevaluate his voting situation and his use of our money; he also needs to reevaluate his lifestyle.

Spend more time here. Buy a house again. Get in touch with your constituents.

Because, at this point, Lugar, your career is on the line. And getting back to your Hoosier roots may be the only way to save it.