I've not paid attention to this story -- but now it appears that I and other Americans ought to do so.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler said Tuesday he will rent a home in Palm Beach County, after a week of criticism since his admission that he hadn't had a home in South Florida for 11 years.

Wexler sold his west of Boca Raton house in 1997, the year he was sworn in to Congress, and moved his wife and children to Maryland.

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen.

Clearly, Wexler is NOT an inhabitant of Florida by any stretch of the imagination, nor has he been for a decade. Will the House of Representatives, under a Speaker who promised to raise the ethical standards of that body, take appropriate actions by expelling Wexler from the body for having repeatedly and willfully violated the Constitution?

Meanwhile, a South Florida Sun-Sentinel investigation into Wexler's Maryland homeownership reveals that he claimed that house as his primary residence for four years and received tax breaks there because of that claim.

Now if his primary residence is in Maryland, how has he qualified as a Florida resident? Easy -- by claiming that his residence is his in-laws' home in a senior community where he would not be permitted to live because of his age (47) and children.

That, my friends, strikes me as nothing short of fraud. Wexler is clearly a Maryland resident.

And this is what the US Constitution says about the issue of residency for house members.

Posted by: Greg at 08:56 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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