How is it that First Lady Hillary Clinton can run for the Senate from New York state? Isn't
state residency a requirement? What qualifications must a candidate for the Senate have? Austin, Texas - 5/3/00
The Constitution names only 3 qualifications to hold a Senate seat. Article I, section 3 requires a
candidate to be:
- at least 30 years of age
- a citizen of the United States for at least 9 years
- a resident of the state when elected.
Should Mrs. Clinton decide to run, she would have to establish residency in New York state any
time prior to election day to meet the technical requirements. Other issues -- such as length of
residence, whether residency is authentic or merely technical, familiarity with the state, etc. --
would certainly be part of the debate during any campaign. However, the relative importance of
these issues will be left to the evaluation of the voters of New York state. In the past, New York
voters elected Robert F. Kennedy (1965) and Daniel P. Moynihan (1977) to the Senate, both of
whom moved to New York only shortly before running for office.
In the current 106th Congress, almost 70% of all Senators were born in the state they now
represent, about the same percentage as in the 105th Congress. In the 104th Congress, the
number was lower -- 60% of that Senate were natives of the state which elected them.
Issues of non-residency have been part of several races for the Senate. It was raised most
recently in Senator Sam Brownback's race in 1996, against Massachusetts-born-and bred
opponent Jill Docking in Kansas. Senator Frank Lautenberg's election campaign in 1988
repeatedly raised the issue of residency against his opponent, General Pete Dawkins, who had
spent minimal time on New Jersey soil. And when Senator John McCain [R-Arizona] won
election to the House in 1982, only one year after moving to Arizona, he countered carpet-bagging charges by reciting his own as well as his father's Naval service and stating, "The
longest place I ever lived was in Hanoi," where he had been held as a prisoner-of-war for six
years.
Only two Senators had their right to office challenged after their election on grounds of non-residency. Both fended off the charges successfully, and retained their seats: Senator Stanley
Griswold [R-Ohio] in 1809 and Adelbert Ames [R-Mississippi] in 1870.
However, all contemporary candidates for office with minimal residency in their chosen state,
must be measured against the case of Senator James Shields, who was the only Senator elected
from three different states: [D-Illinois] in 1849; [D-Minnesota] in 1858; and finally, [D-Missouri] in 1879. When the voters in one state got tired of him, he moved!
