The bombshell dropped by 2nd CD Rep. Thelma Drake is turning out to be much ado about nothing. As the Pilot’s Aaron Applegate reported Tuesday:
The district’s law requires only that one owner live in the home to take advantage of the tax break, said Natalie Wilson, spokeswoman for the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue.
Kent Nye moved into the house in December 2005, just after they bought it, and lived there until he went to Iraq in January 2007, said Glenn Nye, who lived there between State Department postings.
Apparently, the property has been rented since Kent went to Iraq, a posting from which he just returned last week. For those who are familiar with members of the military, this situation is not unusual. Temporarily renting a property due to deployment is quite common and does not affect the generally accepted primary residence rules.
The question remains as to whether the tax owed on the period of rental should be repaid. If there is no provision for temporary absences, then, of course, the tax should be repaid.
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The other issue raised by the Drake campaign was that of Nye’s residency. The charge here has two parts. One is the question of whether Nye is a Virginia resident. As the Daily Press’ Kimball Payne reported, Drake asked, “Why did you fail to vote in ’06 and ’07?” Nye says he was out of the country at the time. The editorial in today’s Pilot says that Nye filed DC income tax returns for 2006, but has filed Virginia returns for all other years.
The second part is whether Nye is lives in the 2nd CD. Nye has been registered to vote at the family home in Norfolk but has been living in a rented property in Virginia Beach.
According to the State Board of Elections Candidacy Requirements bulletin (pdf p.4), to be eligible to run for this office, the candidate must be 25 years old by the time s/he takes office, a resident of the US for at least 7 years, and an inhabitant of the state s/he seeks to represent. The SBE says on the site that the candidate also must be “qualified to vote for and hold the office sought” and be “a resident of the Commonwealth of Virginia for one year immediately preceding the election.”
There has been no charge that the Norfolk address is not in the 2nd CD, and the entire city of Virginia Beach falls in the 2nd, so he is certainly qualified to vote for the office. And he’s more than 25 and has been a resident of the US for more than 7 years. The only possible charge could be that he has not been a resident of Virginia for one year immediately preceding the election.
I can say with absolute certainty that Nye was here last December. Back on December 1, I headed over to canvass for Philip Forgit, after having issued a challenge to bloggers and blog readers to join me. One of the folks who showed up that day was Glenn Nye. He was there to help Philip Forgit but was already campaigning for the 2nd CD race. I’d say it’s pretty likely that he was here before November 5, which would be one year from this year’s election.
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Can we get back to the issues now? 😉
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
By all means, let’s get back to the other issues related to housing that Thelma Drake doesn’t understand.
You know, this just sounds like the type of situation anybody in the military or the civilian foreign service could find themselves in. Rep. Drake should have known better than to make a kerfuffle out of something this minor. It makes her campaign look desperate and it makes her look out of touch with her constituents in the military. And worse, it makes it look like she wants to penalize somebody for serving their country by serving in an overseas post. I’m not sure that’s really the message she intended to send.
Which of her twelve houses does Thelma use for her voter registration? Is that the same house that is her primary residence? Is her husband Ted’s voter registration and residence at the same address?