Sen. Richard Lugar’s true home has become an issue in his re-election effort, with some critics comparing Lugar’s living in Virginia to the residency problem of ousted Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White. Voters are, of course, free to include Lugar’s residency as an issue when they cast ballots in May. But it is largely a distraction and certainly not comparable to White’s situation.

First of all, jurors convicted White on criminal charges of theft, perjury and voter fraud because they believed allegations that White claimed an address other than his home in order to continue to serve on the Fishers Town Council and collect the salary that position paid. Lugar, on the other hand, has never hidden the fact that he moved from Indianapolis to McLean, Va., in 1977.

Lugar continued to claim the Indiana home he sold as his legal residence for voting and tax purposes in accordance with state law. Separate opinions by Indiana attorneys general have backed the legality and appropriateness of that practice.

His two-story Virginia home is very similar to his former Indianapolis home. Property values for McLean, Va., are much higher than those in the Fort Wayne area, and though critics have called the home he bought in 1977 for $164,500 a mansion, it is far more modest. (See photo.) Though congressional budgets today are quite liberal in financing congressional trips between home states and Washington, that wasn’t the case in the mid-1970s, and Lugar moved his home to keep his family in the same house.

Indiana’s senior senator also is part owner of a 640-acre family farm in Marion County, and Lugar still is the farm’s manager. He also pays Indiana state income taxes.

Critics’ claims that Lugar is out of touch with the state are based on political views, not his familiarity with Indiana and its concerns. Lugar was elected at a time when the GOP was much more moderate, and he cast hundreds of votes that were firmly in the party line then but are considered liberal today. That has far more to do with changing times than Lugar’s record, which remains conservative.

Lugar’s critics haven’t brought up Indiana’s other U.S. senator, Dan Coats, who lived in Washington, D.C., suburbs for many years before buying a North Carolina retirement home. During his first stint in Congress, Coats lived in Virginia and had a Fort Wayne apartment.

Nor are critics making much of a deal of Lugar’s opponent, Richard Mourdock, for claiming a homestead tax exemption – reserved for an owner’s single primary home – for two houses at the same time. Mourdock called that an error and paid the difference in property taxes.

Residency has not prevented Lugar and other members of Congress from effectively serving their districts. New York has notoriously loose rules for residency, and voters there elected Hillary Clinton and – decades earlier – Robert F. Kennedy despite their lack of connections to the state.

Lugar is one of the Senate’s most respected members, and his work in removing nuclear weapons from the former Soviet Union is groundbreaking and remarkable. Hoosiers will decide whether they want a much more right-leaning senator or simply a change. But of all the issues in the race, legal residency is not a big one.