On March 5, an attorney for Tom Steyer, a California Democratic candidate for Governor, asked California Secretary of State to examine the residency of Eric Swalwell, another Democratic candidate for Governor. See the letter that sets forth the case that Swalwell does not meet the 5-year California residency requirement.
There virtually are no residence requirements for candidates for Congress, but the U.S. Constitution does permit states to have duration of residency requirements for state office. The California Constitution residency requirement dates from the 19th century. In 1973 the U.S. Supreme Court summarily affirmed a lower court ruling that New Hampshire is permitted to have a seven-year duration of residency requirement for candidates for State Senate. Sununu v Stark.
A California voter, Joel Gilbert, has filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court against the Secretary of State, aimed at forcing the Secretary of State to make a decision about Swalwell’s residency. It has a hearing March 23 at 9 a.m. Gilbert v Weber, 26 WM 000011.
Meanwhile Swalwell has filed a federal lawsuit against the federal government for making his mortgage documents from Washington, D.C., public. The documents show that Swalwell claims his home in Washington, D.C., as his primary residence. Swalwell v Pulte, 1:25cv-4125.
When Eric Swalwell challenged Fortney “Pete” Stark in 2012, there were claims that Stark lived in Maryland, where he had bought a $1.7 million in 1988, and had filed for a tax exemption that required the owner to be registered to vote in Maryland; while claiming a relative’s modest house in Fremont for voting purposes. Swalwell was a city councilman in Dublin, California. When Swalwell visits California, he stays at hotels in San Francisco. Incidentally, Swalwell defeated Stark under Top 2.
George Deukmejian issued an AG opinion that the SOS (then March Fong Eu) did not have the authority to rule on durational residency requirements for the Assembly. Steyer’s letter hints at this opinion.
https://oag.ca.gov/system/files/opinions/pdfs/78-140.pdf
Eu had earlier issued an opinion that the durational residency requirements were unconstitutional. In the early 1970’s the California Supreme Court had ruled against some local durational residency requirements. Butte County in its charter had established a 5-year period for county supervisors. At the time, the general law requirement (for counties without charters) was one year.
The city of Santa Cruz had a 3-year requirement for city councillors which was overturned. Santa Cruz changed the requirement to 2-years which was in turn overturned. One of the California justices suggested that there was no objective standard and the court would be ruling on a case by case basis, and suggested that the right to vote and the right to be voted for were equivalent. A reasonable extension of that is early filing deadlines, eight months before the election are tantamount to establishing a durational residency requirement.
I doubt that the New Hampshire decision is binding on California. Steyer could sue the SOS who would probably defer to the AG. But his goal here is not to actually knock Swalwell off the ballot, but to cause press scrutiny of Swalwell. He could run campaign ads showing where Swalwell claims to live, but that might not work in Steyer’s case. I don’t think he lives in a log cabin.