Water records suggest Mack comes home to Florida — sometimes

Somebody has flushed toilets and taken showers — or done something to use water — at Connie Mack IV's Fort Myers townhouse at least a few days a month for at least the last two years.
That water usage offers more evidence than Mack, himself, has provided in response to a question that has long haunted the Republican congressman and U.S. Senate candidate: Does he really live in Florida — and specifically in his 14[SUP]t[/SUP][SUP]h[/SUP] Congressional District?

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Connie Mack is the GOP's best bet to unseat Nelson in Florida, but his Republican Primary opponent is using a report of Mack's water usage at his home in Fort Myers to suggest that Mack is not actually a resident of Florida. Yes, Mack is not in Florida much of the time, and yes, Mack also has a second home in California. But Florida is where Mack spends most of his time, when not in Washington, and Florida is where Mack votes. Mack's primary residence is in Florida.

So Mack doesn't flush his crapper as many times as his neighbors? So what?

If Mack's Tea Party opponents are able to successfully Lugar him out of the race, there is no doubt that the Democrats are going to retain that seat. This year it seems that the extremist elements of the Republican Party are pulling out all the stops to ensure that the Democrats retain the Senate. This is insane.

Article is here.

I didn't even know it was legal to get a hold of someone else's water usage. That sounds like a privacy violation to me.

I don't understand the issue though. Is there a time requirement for how much time a person has to live in their residence during a year to claim residency and voting eligibility? What if they do have several different places but only claim one because they spend time during the year at all of them? As long as they only claim one of them, and they spend a significant portion of their time there, it shouldn't matter.

Maybe this is just from being in the military, but I just don't think it is fair in this day and age to have some major time frame for a person to have to be staying in their house to claim residency.

Think you got yourself mixed up here. The "tea party" has actually endorsed Mack over Lemieux. Mainly due to Lemieux being Crist's little buddy.

So in essence, it would be Lemieux getting "Lugared" out of the race.

I spend far more time at work than I do at the house. I work in a different parish from where I live. Does that mean I'm not a resident of the town and parish I live in?

dontworrybehappy said:

I spend far more time at work than I do at the house. I work in a different parish from where I live. Does that mean I'm not a resident of the town and parish I live in?

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I am sure there is a primary residency requirement for all political positions. Spending 9 months of the year say in Hawaii while running for office in Idaho, should be in my opinion impossible. So should a sudden move 2 weeks before running for office in Idaho.

So unless you live at work (long haul truckers excepted) I am sure you spend more nights home then at work. (by nights I mean sleeping just in case you work nights)

:shrug: It wouldn't be the first time a politician played "musical houses" in order to get elected when election in his real home county/state would be impossible. He's the one who has to prove where is primarily residence is, not the other way around. If it turns out that water usage shows a toilet flushed only a few times a week, and not enough usage for routine showers, laundry, dishwasher activity, it's not a stretch to give it a stronger sniff test.

DiAnna said:

:shrug: It wouldn't be the first time a politician played "musical houses" in order to get elected when election in his real home county/state would be impossible. He's the one who has to prove where is primarily residence is, not the other way around. If it turns out that water usage shows a toilet flushed only a few times a week, and not enough usage for routine showers, laundry, dishwasher activity, it's not a stretch to give it a stronger sniff test.

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If he is the only one returning to the house every weekend and possibly during some of those weeks, over a thousand gallons of water being used a month is more than enough. The other residents water bills were reporting to be about 3-4K a month. So if his wife lives in CA, on a much more permanent basis and their kids, if they have them aren't in residence in their FL home, then that would be a little over 1K gal of water usage for 1 guy. The other houses, if you figure an average of about 3-4 people, the average family size, per house would show about 1K gallons per person of water usage a month. Wouldn't that be about right?

I don't agree with all this "prove it to me!" stuff that digs into everyone's history. His neighbors vouched that they see the guy. I can't even tell you half the people that live around me or whether they are home or not or whether the houses are occupied or not. So that seems to me that he is at least seen enough by his neighbors to be noticed. Why isn't that good enough?

Lord Tammerlain said:

I am sure there is a primary residency requirement for all political positions. Spending 9 months of the year say in Hawaii while running for office in Idaho, should be in my opinion impossible. So should a sudden move 2 weeks before running for office in Idaho.

So unless you live at work (long haul truckers excepted) I am sure you spend more nights home then at work. (by nights I mean sleeping just in case you work nights)

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No I work days, if you want to call it that. But, sometimes my days run so late or start so early that I DO sleep at work. In fact, this week, I'm sleeping at work 2 out of 5 nights, including tonight. It saves a ton of gas and stress as each morning its a toss up whether the traffic will permit me to make it to work in 25 minutes of an hour and 25 minutes. (the shortest time was 23 minutes and the longest was 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to work) I am on call 24 hours a day 5 days a week. People are saying I'm married to this place as I spend more time here than at my own home.

But it's not the worse place to be stuck, I do have free internet and DirecTV to watch, not to mention a hot shower to bathe in. I work in a very active corporate jet hangar in case anyone is wondering.