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Florida’s Many Senate Candidates

I thought the Constitution limited state to two Senators each!

Steven L. Taylor
17

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Via MSNOW: ‘Florida resident’: How owning property in Florida has become a political liability for GOP Senate candidate.

Mike Rogers, Roger Marshall, Michele Tafoya and Ken Paxton — all GOP nominees in some of the most hotly contested Senate races across the country — own real estate in the Sunshine State.

[…]

The attacks have been so potent that one of those GOP candidates — Marshall — told MS NOW that he just sold his Florida home.

[…]

Tafoya has a history of saying disparaging things about Minnesota — while touting Florida. In 2023, she posted that she was “embarrassed” to say she lives in Minnesota. In 2024, she posted she’d be “fleeing soon.”

Meanwhile, in 2023, she described herself as “sort of a Florida woman” in a video podcast, reasoning that she lives there “part time” and owns a house there. Later that year, she called herself a “Florida resident” in a social media post.

[…]

Public records reviewed by The New York Times show Paxton — along with his blind trust and a family trust — owns a litany of properties in different states, including three homes in Florida.

I suppose there is also a broader question of whether it is a good thing that the political class appears replete with people who can afford to own multiple homes.

On the one hand, people are allowed to own multiple homes, and it stands to reason that if one can afford a vacation home, it would be somewhere where people might like to vacation. Florida probably wouldn’t be my choice, but I can see the appeal.

Still, it would seem if someone is supposed to be the Very Extra Special representative of a state, that maybe more time and love ought to be demonstrated for said state. And maybe, just maybe, Senators and Senator-wannabes should look to serve their state first and then retire before they get too old so they can then enjoy their lovely vacation homes.

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17 responses to “Florida’s Many Senate Candidates”

  1. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Is Roger Marshall going back to live in his 1,120‑square‑foot cabin near St. John in Stafford County, Kansas?

  2. Scott Avatar
    Scott

    Have you all in Alabama determined yet where Tommy Tuberville actually lives?

    1. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      @Scott: The court said it can’t be raised until after he is elected, because if he loses, no harm, no foul.

      1
      1. Scott Avatar
        Scott

        Some amazing twisted logic there.

      2. a country lawyer Avatar
        a country lawyer

        The Alabama Supreme Court has now ruled that it lacks jurisdiction to hear the case. Link

  3. Jen Avatar
    Jen

    “Still, it would seem if someone is supposed to be the Very Extra Special representative of a state, that maybe more time and love ought to be demonstrated for said state.”

    And, ya know, maybe not explicitly trash the state you are seeking to represent by stating you’re “embarrassed” to be from there.

    Again, coming from a background in electoral politics, it is astonishing to me how far the needle has moved. Back when I was working on campaigns, something like that coming out would have been a death knell for a candidate.

    Now, it’s just another day ending in Y.

    1
  4. James Joyner Avatar
    James Joyner

    So, on the one hand, if the voters of a state don’t care, why should I? Hillary Clinton famously moved to New York to run for the Senate there; Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, then a Senator from Utah; and everyone from George H.W. Bush to Dick Cheney claimed residency in states where they hadn’t lived in decades. On the other hand, it seems to undermine the state and local representation that’s the ostensible rationale behind our institutional design.

    Regardless, I distinguish cases where someone owns a second home in another state from the one in which they make a primary residence from a Tommy Tuberville situation.

    1. Jen Avatar
      Jen

      As you note, I believe there is a clear distinction from someone who moves to a state, makes it their residence, and runs there.

      People move (lord knows I have).

      The strangeness comes in when politicians have multiple houses, claim residency in one state, but run in another.

      I said something similar when this came up in another post recently–if you aren’t a tax-paying resident of the state you are seeking to represent, how much fealty or loyalty can constituents expect you to have?

      And, again I note: being an elected official in a state comes with actual duties, such as constituent services. It’s a lot harder to solve constituent problems when the state apparatus views you as someone who isn’t going to be around to help them out when they need it.

      3
    2. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      On the other hand, it seems to undermine the state and local representation that’s the ostensible rationale behind our institutional design.

      This is my core point.

      But also that in some of these cases, it’s not wholly clear who lives where nor how forthright they are being with voters.

    3. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      @drjjoyner BTW: I don’t think that Clinton, Romney, or Cheney are relevant here. I have zero problem with a person publicly moving to X to run for office in X.

      Mostly, I find people like Marshall, who appears to have really lived in Florida more than in the state he represented, especially annoying.

      Clearly, the voters get to decide, and I am fine with that.

      Ultimately, the whole thing rankles me in regard to the Senate, since state representation is supposed to be so very important, and I am doubly rankled by Republicans in this context, as they are the ones most likely to talk like the Senate is sacred.

  5. Charley in Cleveland Avatar
    Charley in Cleveland

    Hillary wasn’t the first pol to find NY convenient for a Senate run – in 1964, while unabashedly calling Massachusetts his home, Robert F. Kennedy Sr. won a Senate seat representing New York. He was said to own some property in Manhattan, but otherwise made no pretense of being a New Yorker. Incumbent Senator Ken Keating called Kennedy a carpetbagger – to no avail. And given a healthy victory margin of about 3/4s of a million votes, NY voters also didn’t seem to mind the residence issue. (RFK didn’t want to run in Mass. because brother Ted already held the seat once occupied by JFK.)

    1
    1. Moosebreath Avatar
      Moosebreath

      Tom Lehrer said at the time that he lived in Massachusetts, the only state with 3 Senators (counting RFK).

  6. gVOR08 Avatar
    gVOR08

    The whole idea of residence in a state, much less citizenship, gets complicated in a highly mobile society. Maybe for tax and voting purposes people should be required to claim one state of residence. It then wouldn’t be a big step to requiring that be the state in which they run for office.

    Florida Republicans enthusiastically implemented no-excuse vote-by-mail many years ago. A big driver was that a majority of snowbirds were Republican and it’d be just fine if they voted in two states.

    1
  7. Sleeping Dog Avatar
    Sleeping Dog

    Minnesota, Michigan, Kansas, all states that people talk about fleeing, so yeah, that the residents are often a bit sensitive.

    It’s one thing to have a warm weather, second home and another to claim that the hovel in the state you’re running is the primary residence, while the second is a mansion in FLA. And yeah, Tafoya has stepped in it.

  8. Scott F. Avatar
    Scott F.

    I don’t know. In the polarized era of Trumpism, the idea that a GOP Senator/Representative would put the interests of their state/district over the interests of the Trump administration is patently absurd. There’s not a federal elected position that isn’t both partisan and nationalized.

    1. Steven L. Taylor Avatar
      Steven L. Taylor

      Scott F.: To be clear, I think that even before Trump and our polarized era, most of our politics was already partisan and nationalized.

  9. DK Avatar
    DK

    My immediate thought was New York might have a higher tolerance for transplant senators because New Yorkers are used to their relatively high percentage of transplant residents. My rudimentary research bears this out. About a quarter of New York state residents were not born in New York.

    Contrast that with a state like Maine, where ~90% of Mainers were born in the state. Thus, it’s no surprise the candidates’ there are preoccupied with showing off their Maine bona-fides.

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