But What About Mitch's Residency Problem?

I know people are tired of hearing about the residency issue by this point, but I feel in the interest of fairness to former Secretary of State Charlie White, who was prosecuted for registering to vote at his ex-wife's home for a several month period, forced from office and lost his law license, that the issue needs to be thoroughly vetted with respect to others as well. Gov. Mitch Daniels was highly critical of the decisions White made with respect to his residency claims and called for his resignation early on after he was sworn into office. After yesterday's news about Daniels being named as the new president of Purdue University, reporters wondered whether he would choose to live on campus since he chose not to reside in the governor's residence. The Associated Press reports that Daniels says that he will live on the Purdue campus:

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels says he'll live in the president's house once he takes over at Purdue University but will go back and forth to his Carmel home.

Daniels was introduced as the university's 12th president Thursday after a unanimous vote by the Board of Trustees.

Daniels and wife Cheri chose not to move into the Indiana governor's residence after his election in 2004. They said the recently renovated home still needed $2.6 million in upgrades and that they planned to build a home in a gated community in the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel.

The governor's residence had been empty before. No one ever lived in the second governor's mansion in downtown Indianapolis in 1827, and the house was torn down 30 years later.

White, of course, complained to reporters at the time that the residency issues of others weren't being looked at in the same way his residency issue had been closely scrutinized by the media and prosecutors. The issue did eventually catch up with Sen. Richard Lugar and former U.S. Rep. David McIntosh, contributing to their election defeats this year. The Indiana Constitution is clear that the governor is required to reside in Indianapolis. Daniels hasn't hidden the fact that he chose instead to reside in his Carmel home. White complained that Daniels, nonetheless, registered to vote using the governor's residence as his voting address. Reporters were always dismissive of White's complaint, but it does seem to be a relevant question to ask. Daniels ignored the constitutional mandate to live at the governor's residence, and he got by with using it as his voting residence. White has a legitimate point about double standards and the rule of law not being uniformly applied.