Crossposted at
ePluribus Media's Community site.
The
WAPO reported on 9/3 that Rove illegally claimed the homestead exemption on his D.C. property because he is registered to vote in Texas. They had obtained information from San Antonio native Elizabeth Reyes, an attorney in the Elections Division of the Texas Secretary of State's office, who answered a hypothetical question posed by a WAPO reporter. Reyes stated that, given the scenario posed by the reporter, the ownership of Texas property may not qualify one to vote there. The story was widely reported, Rove was ordered to pay back taxes in DC, and on Tuesday 9/6, according to the
San Antonio Express-News. Elizabeth Reyes was fired from her job. She never knew she was being interviewed, and Rove's name was never mentioned in the hypothetical case. And now Texas is trying to avert its eyes from considering it a case of voter fraud.
Rove's Texas property consists of two small cottages, one 494 sq. ft. and the other 814 sq. ft. in a bed & breakfast complex on the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. Locals say they rarely, if ever see him, and he's not a part of the Kerr County Republican Party. Rove's DC property is valued at over 1.1 million.
Melanie Sloan of Citizens' for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington is attempting to find someone in Kerr County to file a complaint of voter fraud, maintaining that Rove does not intend to live there. Texas law requires that a voter does not have to reside in the state but must intend to return there after his 'temporary' residency elsewhere. No voter fraud prosecutions have been pursued in the last 18 years and the Kerr County Voter Registrar declines to investigate the case. The chairman of the Kerr County Republican Party, the aptly named Tom Mock, poo poos this fuss about Rove.
"I'm kind of amazed anybody would bring it up, to be honest with you," Mock said. "Your residency is what you say it is, so long as you have a P.O. box or something to establish yourself here. We have thousands of RV-ers who do that regularly."
Just saying makes it so.
Elizabeth Reyes is contesting her dismissal by asserting that she was simply answering routine questions and that the hypothetical nature of the case did not rise to the level of inquiry which she would have been required to refer it to her supervisor. Given the "just saying makes it so" climate in Texas, she may be hard pressed to get a hearing.