The Alabama Constitution says Governors must have lived in the state for seven years before running for that office. On October 9, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that courts cannot enforce that provision before an election. Instead, the decision says, the only possible challenge before an election is to have the candidate’s party adjudicate the matter. State ex rel Dorgan v Tuberville, SC-2026-0540. The decision is unanimous, although two justices recused themselves. In Alabama, State Supreme Court justices are elected in partisan elections. All nine justices are Republicans.
The case had been brought by individuals who argued that Republican nominee Tommy Tuberville doesn’t actually live in Alabama. He is a U.S. Senator from Alabama who owns homes in Washington, D.C., and Florida.
Here is the Opinion. It leaves the door open for a challenge after the election.
What difference does it make? He’s going to win the election and live in Montgomery, Alabama at the Governor’s mansion.
I am opposed to residency requirements for candidates. The United Kingdom does it right. People don’t need to live in their district to run for House of Commons.
That kind of defeats the point of districts, doesn’t it?
There shouldn’t be any districts. Nation states should have about 100k people each, certainly no more than a million. Only about one in a thousand people should be allowed to vote. Then no districts would be needed for anything.
As technology akin to replicators and holodecks on Star Trek becomes available and widespread , probably some time this century, there will be very little reason for any person or goods to ever cross those borders ever again, so that would really end most of the world’s problems all by itself.
What about inbreeding?
Q,
If you’re asking me, that’s an interesting question I hadn’t yet considered, as far as I can remember.
I think populations of 10k-1m are probably large enough to avoid inbreeding related problems. But I could be wrong. That might be one exception to cross borders. Courtship can occur through immersive communication, so only the actual marriage would involve any travel. Since sex and everything else can be realistically simulated through full immersive communication, it might only be genetic material carrying DNA that would have to be transported.
I did say rarely, not never. There could be some other very limited exceptions. But in general, immersive communication and the ability to assemble anything to specs at the atomic or subatomic level would eliminate the vast majority of incentives to ever cross borders.
It’s a false stereotype that inbreeding is any more prevalent in the South than up north.
HG, Looking at Tuberville, I’m not sure that the stereotype is false. When he opens his mouth and dumb things come out, I’m thinking it could well be true. What do you think?
He seems like one of the smartest Senators to me.
What about Hitler Mussolini beating Lenin Vladimir for small town mayor in Peru?
People must be suffering from altitude sickness and drug addiction in the Peruvian mountains to give such names to their kids. Very unfortunate. )
There are a lot of very messed up places and people all over the world. Most Americans have no idea how good they have it because they haven’t been to a lot of parts of the world, or if they have, they had sanitized experiences in tourist areas or in whatever role they were there in.
I just hope we continue to elect MAGA presidents of the USA so all that craziness doesn’t come over here, and more of it can go back to the hellhole places it came from.
We really need very badly to deport everyone who wouldn’t be here except for the immigration law of 1965, the single worst and craziest law passed in 250 years of US history. That includes a lot of citizens and legal residents who shouldn’t be either of the two as well as what is still probably tens of millions of illegal invaders. Overall probably at least a hundred million who need to go bye bye.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_warranto
BRIT OLDE QUO WARRANTO – NOW ONE MORE CIVIL ACTION — AFTER AN ELECTION AND PERSON TAKES OFFICE.
Q posted:
“That kind of defeats the point of districts, doesn’t it?”
The original purpose of Congressional districts was to prevent parties from winning entire slates in states with at-large (no districts) voting. Even today, it is NOT required for a candidate for Congress to live in a district, only that they be residents of the state when elected.
I don’t think that was the only original point of districts.
You have to keep in mind that in those days travel and communication were far from quick of guaranteed, and that US founders built on what were at that point already centuries old English traditions and precedents, as well as on so called “enlightenment” ideas they took too far (judging by how things have gone since then).
To elaborate on my prior comment, constituent services as well as representing the views of the local gentry in his district was a representative’s job in the early USA congresses and legislatures.
How would he have done that effectively without living in the district in the 18th century with travel by horse and buggy and mail delivered on horse by saddle bag from horse hitching post office to hitching post office?
As for governors, states like Alabama and its neighbors had quite a few issues with carpetbagger Yankees after the illegal and unconstitutional war of northern aggression and subsequent federal occupation.
My own ancestors who lived at that time were all in Jackson County, Florida, which is close to Alabama and even closer to Georgia. They fought on the Confederate side, of course, and also on the conservative side in a local war that county had afterwards.
Tuberville is a Southerner, born and raised, but more in general, it makes sense for Governors to reside in the State they seek to govern before they are elected and not just after.
I wonder what point, if any, was the spambot supposed to be making in bringing up quo warrantis, or was it a machine glitch yet again? I know it’s pointless to ask such questions when it comes to the spambot, and probably just machine glitch.
Common law having been essentially a game of telephone – judicial misinterpretations piled on top of each other repeatedly – one might make erroneous assumptions on which earthly entity might have ultimate authority or how that would be determined.
How many times have Wikipedia woke pedophiles asked the spambot to quit linking to them?