Update, 9 February. I now believe that Laslovich must live in SD-43 to satisfy Montana’s residency requirements. I have extensively revised this posting.
Suppose that you and your wife both worked in Helena, owned a house there, and lived in that house. Wouldn’t you call Helena home, and use a Helena address if you filed for political office? That’s I would do, and I think, what most people would do.
But not 27-year-old Jesse Laslovich. Although he and his wife, Jill, own and live in a house in Helena, where he works in the Attorney General’s office, and she at a private law firm, he used his parent’s home address in Anaconda when he filed as a candidate for the Democratic primary in Senate District 43, where he happens to be the incumbent.
Living in one legislative district while representing another is perfectly legal in some cases, but not in others. Article V. of Montana’s constitution establishes residency requirements for legislators:
Section 4. Qualifications. A candidate for the legislature shall be a resident of the state for at least one year next preceding the general election. For six months next preceding the general election, he shall be a resident of the county if it contains one or more districts or of the district if it contains all or parts of more than one county.
Senate District 43 covers parts of several counties. Therefore, to meet the qualifications set forth in Montana’s constitution, Laslovich must be a resident of his district. That’s why his filing address is in Anaconda, where his parents live, not in Helena where he lives.
In densely populated counties — Flathead, Missoula, Cascade, Yellowstone, for example — redistricting can exclude a legislator or candidate from the entirely-within-the-county district in which he once lived while his practical position in his community, and thus his ability to represent it, remains unchanged. For example, my home west of Kalispell is close enough to several districts that I could run in any in good conscience and within the letter of the law. And Montana law allows holders of elective office to be temporarily absent from their district or the state so long as they intend to return. It’s a reasonably sensible system.
The White Pages lists a Helena telephone number for him. According to Switchboard, he has a post office box in Helena. I suspect that’s the address he uses on his utility bills, the mailing address on his deed to his property. Is he registered to vote in Helena? If not, why not? Does mail sent to him at the Anaconda address get forwarded to Helena?
Dennison reported that “[Laslovich said he] has used…[the Anaconda]…address for his entire career in the Legislature, including his first two terms in the state House, when he was a student at the University of Montana in Missoula,” so one explanation is that his mind was on autopilot when he filed. But an equally reasonable explanation is that he knew full well that he was being deceptive in an effort to claim he was a resident of his district, and to conceal the fact that he now lives in Helena.
Laslovich’s perception of his predicament appears skewed in part by his status as an incumbent who was a part-time resident of his district while he attended university and law school in Missoula. Speaking to Mike Dennison of the Missoulian’s state bureau, he said, “I was still able to work and do a good job for the district (when I was a UM student). I don’t think it is any different this time,” (story).
He undoubtedly believes that — but his situation has changed, and he seems largely unaware of it. It’s reasonable for a student at the University of Montana to maintain roots in the community in which he grew up, and to consider that community home. As a student he didn’t spend all of his away from school time in Anaconda, but he surely spent a good deal of it there. Under those circumstances, the argument that he represented the community that was his home was understandable and had some merit.
By any reasonable definition, however, a young man who graduates from law school, marries, takes a job in Helena, as does his wife, and buys and lives in a house in Helena, has chosen Helena as his home. He’s a new member of the community of Helena, which he does not yet know as well as he knows Anaconda, but he’s fooling himself — and his constituents — if he thinks that Helena is a bedroom suburb of Anaconda. To be sure, Helena is many miles closer to Anaconda than Troy is to Ekalaka, but in most other senses the degree of separation is equal. And the longer he lives in Helena, the more he will become (certainly, should become) a part of its community and less a part of SD-43’s community.
At this point, I think he has two choices. He can move back to Anaconda, or anywhere in SD-43, and stay on the ballot. Or, he can withdraw as a candidate in SD-43, and either file for a legislative seat in the Helena area or retire from the Legislature. If he continues to pursue the fiction that he’s complying with Section 4 of Article V, a Republican is likely to file for the seat on the last day of filing — after which, Republicans will mount a legal challenge to Laslovich. Were that to happen, the Democratic Party could be left without a candidate on the ballot in SD-43.
A major factor in his filing in SD-43 is that like all politicians, Laslovich is loath to forego running for re-election before term limits send him to the sidelines. He’s served six years in the legislature, enjoys it, and as chair of the senate’s judiciary committee, has risen to a position of some power. Indeed, he’s known nothing else during his adult life, and the prospect of going from committee chair to just Joe Voter must be unsettling, even frightening.
Last summer, for example, he took a job as a personal assistant to Attorney General Mike McGrath, but decided to retain his position as chair of the judiciary committee. To me, that was a clear conflict of interest — he should have stepped down as chair — but I did not say so at the time (in retrospect, I should have made my voice head). Once a man clamps his hand around a lever of power, he seldom lets go voluntarily, even when releasing the lever would be the smart move.
Laslovich actually has several political options now that he lives in Helena. One, of course, is running in SD-43, which requires moving back to the district. Another is running for the senate in SD 41, which covers western Helena and points west. State Representative Hal Jacobson, an experienced legislator, has filed for the Democratic nomination in SD-41, but Jacobson is no more entitled to a free pass than is Hillary Clinton. Laslovich could run for any of several house seats in Helena. Or, he could throw his hat in the ring against Dennis Rehberg, Montana’s popular Republican congressman and franking king who might be vulnerable to an aggressive, creative, fresh-faced Democratic challenger, a species that’s damned near extinct.
His best option, however, might be to retire from politics for a few years while he starts a family, travels, perhaps lives abroad for a while, and establishes himself in the legal profession. Whatever he may think now, he’ll be a much better legislator and politician at 37 or 47 than at 27, and still would have decades of useful service ahead of him.