These days, joy where you can find it. I was researching a candidate diary that will publish tomorrow morning when I came across something unexpected. Above is former MN House Rep Bob Bennett. He is a former Rep because not only was he a bad boy, he was an incredibly clumsy and incompetent bad boy. And his efforts were straight out of The Three Stooges.
Bob Bennett was elected to the MN House in 2010. Like most states, Minnesota requires legislators to reside in their district for at least 6 months before an election. There seem to have been lingering questions about Barrett’s actual residence. He owns a home in a nearby town, but it’s in a different district, so he rents a house in the district. An activist group filed a residency challenge to his candidacy in 2014 that was denied.
This time, the group was more careful, and apparently much more thorough. According to a STORY in the Star Tribune at the time;
In all, Stephenson wrote, three people visited the Taylors Falls rental home that Barrett says is his official address a total of 30 times between July 4 and Aug. 1 and found little to suggest the home was occupied. They knocked on the door multiple times, and set up a motion-sensitive camera that showed few signs of habitation.
As Rick Perry would say, “Oops”. But hell, Barrett had beaten this rap before. He responded that he had lived in the rental house since October of 2015, but admitted that his wife still lived in the other house. Turns out the landlord contributed to his campaign. And Barrett must be some great tenant, since he was getting the place for $300 a month. But under pressure, Barrett had to make a rather embarrassing admission;
Barrett told the court he is interested in buying the rental house. But he admitted it currently has no cable or satellite television, no internet service, no trash pickup service and no washing machine or dryer. He claimed his wife has been avoiding the rental property because of what he called harassment by DFL activists.
Man, this guy must be trying to get wayyyy far back to the “good old days”! Forget the modern conveniences like cable and and internet, his cell probably picks up wi-fi. But how in the hell do you occupy a house and yet not need trash pickup? What the hell does he do, toss the bag in the trunk and then throw it out in a dumpster at a gas station? Is a state Rep going to the laundromat with a fistful of quarters once a week? Needless to say, the court invalidated him, and the state Supreme Court upheld the ruling, forcing a special election for the seat next Tuesday, the subject that led me to this nugget in the first place.
The question in my title stands. Do these guys all wear loafers and Crocs so they don’t have to get somebody to tie their shoes? If this is the level that the entire GOP is sinking to, no wonder the Republicans in the House wanted to get rid of the Ethics committee.