Scott Brown's US Senate race has attracted national attention. Not long after he failed to be re-elected in 2014, he moved to New Hampshire and immediately started running for one of New Hampshire's Senate seats.
He is not the only out of stater running for an office at the top of the ballot. Bethesda, Maryland's favorite son Walt Havenstein is running for Governor. Unlike Scott Brown, Havenstein has to exceed a minimum residency requirement. I am a state representative, so I have a two-year requirement. When I first ran in 2008, I had to have been an inhabitant of New Hampshire continuously since at least 2006. (I had in fact been living in the state continuously since 1984.) Walt Havenstein appears to have been living in Maryland between 2007 and 2012, which would be OK if he was merely running for state representative. The question of his eligibility ended up before the state's ballot law commission.
I attended the New Hampshire Ballot Law Commission hearing on June 30, 2014, regarding Walt Havenstein's eligibility to run for governor. The New Hampshire Constitution states that you cannot run for (or serve as) Governor unless you have been an inhabitant of our state for the past seven years. I personally believe that there is ample evidence that he was an inhabitant of Maryland for at least some of the years between 2007 and 2012. I was not shocked, however, that 3 of the 5 members of the commission gave him the benefit of the doubt and voted to keep him on the ballot.
In January 2007, Walt Havenstein and his wife Judith bought a luxury condo in downtown Bethesda, Maryland, just as he was taking a new job as the chief executive of defense contractor BAE Systems' US operating division. Mr. Havenstein and his lawyer described the condo, with only unintentional irony, as “very spartan.” C-Level executives earning $5 million or so a year generally live in fancier dwellings, but this was nevertheless a spacious two-bedroom apartment in a great location, with two parking spaces, in a fancy new building. The Havensteins took a property tax deduction available only to residents of Maryland who are using the home as a principal residence, which saved them between $1000 and $2500/year. They also got a lower interest rate on their mortgage by declaring the condo as their primary residence.
The Havensteins continued to own a lakeside house in Alton, New Hamsphire which they built in 2004, and Mrs. Havenstein continued to live in New Hampshire full-time. Judith Havenstein is definitely eligible to run for governor of New Hampshire, but she is not the candidate. Like millions of other happily married couples, they maintained separate residences between 2007 and 2012. (2012 was the year Mr. Havenstein retired somewhat abruptly at the end of three difficult years as the CEO of one of BAE's competitors, SAIC.)
While living in Maryland, Havenstein did visit his wife in Alton as frequently as she could, and he even continued to vote in Alton. However, the tax deduction is just one of many indications that he was in fact an inhabitant of Maryland. He was active in many civic activities around the Washington DC area. He frequently referred to himself in various forums as a resident of Bethesda (which happens to be the town where he grew up.) He has been a leading spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development's ongoing “ChooseMaryland.org” campaign, which encourages businesses to locate in that state. By his own admission, he even got a Maryland drivers license in 2009.
The characterization of a luxury condo in Bethesda as "very spartan" was one of several monents which underlined the gap between the 1% and the rest of us. Even though he was paid absurdly well by most standards, he still congratulated himself repeatedly for the sacrifices he made by staying in Washington. DC to serve his country (and not merely for the millions of dollars he was paid.) He is somewhat more soft-spoken and less arrogant than the average CEO, but he was still quick to blame others for his mistakes while not being shy to take credit for his accomplishments. Some of the things for which he congratulated himself seemed remarkably ordinary to a peon like myself. For example, he made a big fuss over the fact he drove himself to work every morning instead of being chaffuered (which was why he needed parking spaces and a drivers license.) He was excessively proud of that act of humility.
If he really wanted to be humble, I think he should considered taking public transit to work. I know for a fact there was a bus stop right outside his condo.
He explained away the fact that he was rarely at his famiiy's house in New Hampshire by bragging about the 12 hour days he was working and the thousands of miles he was traveling. I am sure he actually was working hard at a job he loved, for which he was handsomely compensated. But his humble brags before the Ballot Law Comission contradicted statements about work-family balance which he made in various speeches about leadership. Apparently, two of his greatest achievements as a leader were:
1. introducing a "9-80" schedule at BAE Systems which gave everyone in his work group an extra day off per fortnight to be with their families;
and 2. leading teams which were motivated to work 12-hour days, often on weekends, and often missing out on family time.