Want to be Alabama’s next governor? Among the requirements is that you must be a state resident for at least seven years. Secretary of State? The residency requirement drops to five years. State Senate or House? You have to have called Alabama home for at least three years.
But U.S. Senate and House? One day of residency is all that’s required.
And, according to the Constitution, residency at the time of election is all that’s needed to hold a six-year term in the U.S. Senate.
According to the Alabama Secretary of State’s Office, there are only a handful of minimum qualifications for public office in the state. For U.S. Senator, you have to be at least 30 years old, a state resident for at least 1 day, a U.S. citizen for at least 9 years and a registered voter.
Those requirements are based on the U.S. Constitution which sets the same age and citizenship requirements but clarifies the residency requirements to say a candidate must be “an inhabitant of that state for which he shall be chosen,” at the time they are elected.
Congress has interpreted the residency clause slightly differently over time, to include “only the time they take the oath of office.”
Courts have been liberal in their definitions of what qualifies someone as a resident, tossing out state efforts to impose additional restrictions.
The question of Senate residency arose this week following a Washington Post story detailing how Republican U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville did not own property in the state after selling parcels in Macon and Tallapoosa counties. A spokesman for Tuberville maintains the Senator’s primary residence is an Auburn house owned by his wife and son, though campaign finance documents and property records suggest his main home is in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.
Tuberville is also in Washington, D.C. four days a week while the Senate is in session, according to his staff.
The Tuberville situation isn’t the first time residency requirements have been questioned in regard to the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama.
In 2019, reports indicated Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida was considering crossing state lines into Alabama to run for the U.S. Senate seat then held by Democrat Doug Jones. And, in 2017, U.S. citizen Mary Maxwell left her home in Australia and claimed one-day residency to run for the Alabama Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, a primary race eventually won by former Chief Justice Roy Moore.