Mitt Romney clinched the Republican presidential nomination Tuesday with a win in the Texas primary, a triumph of endurance for a candidate who came up short four years ago and had to fight hard this year as voters flirted with a carousel of GOPState Treasurer Richard Mourdock said Wednesday in Fort Wayne he “would walk through fire” for Gov. Mitch Daniels.
But Daniels took a firm stand the same day for Mourdock’s foe in the Republican primary election for a U.S. Senate seat.
Daniels said at the Statehouse he will not order the Indiana Election Commission to investigate whether Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., is voting illegally in Indiana.
Daniels’ involvement is sought by Hoosiers for Conservative Senate, a tea party coalition that supports Mourdock’s candidacy.
“No, we’re not doing that,” said Daniels, a former Lugar aide who has endorsed the senator’s re-election bid. “I’ve talked to lawyers, and both the constitution and statute are clear. He’s qualified as he has been for all his previous elections.”
Lugar lives in McLean, Va., but lists an Indianapolis house he sold in the 1970s as his address for voting in Indiana elections. In 1982, the state attorney general determined that a Hoosier member of Congress can claim his most recent Indiana address for voting purposes even if he no longer lives there.
“We’ve got to have a good competitive election, but (Lugar’s opponents) shouldn’t try to end it on a technicality that really isn’t legally valid,” Daniels said about the residency question.
Daniels “is obviously covering up for his friend,” Greg Fettig, co-chair of Hoosiers for Conservative Senate, said in a phone interview.
Mourdock conducted a news conference Wednesday morning outside Lugar’s former home in Indianapolis. There and during an afternoon visit at IPFW, he contended that Lugar, a senator since 1977, is violating a provision of the U.S. Constitution requiring senators to be inhabitants of the states that elect them.
“We’re asking him to declare, if he should win the primary, he will come back and take up residence to become an inhabitant” of Indiana for the November general election, Mourdock said in an interview at IPFW’s Science Building.
“The Democrats are going to have a heck of an argument if he doesn’t formally demonstrate that he is an inhabitant.”
Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-2nd, is unopposed for the Democratic nomination for Senate. The state party’s leadership rebuked Lugar last week for using public funds to pay for hotels when he is in Indiana.
David Willkie, political director for Lugar’s re-election effort, wrote in an email Wednesday that Lugar is a legal resident of Indiana who pays state income taxes and has an Indiana driver’s license.
“Everybody in the world knows that Dick Lugar is a Hoosier,” Willkie wrote.
Hoosiers for Conservative Senate is urging state and Marion County election officials and the Marion County prosecutor to investigate whether Lugar is registered to vote at a false address. Their request is based on a complaint filed last year with the Indiana secretary of state by an Indianapolis resident.
“How are you exempt from the same laws that convicted our secretary of state on felony charges?” Fettig asked, comparing Lugar’s situation to that of Charlie White.
White was removed from office recently after he was found guilty of being registered to vote in 2010 at his ex-wife’s address instead of his own house.
