Senate District 17 GOP candidate Rob Wallace is calling on one of his opponents in the August 14 primary – Pasco County House Representative John Legg, to resign from his House seat, for not living in his district.
Wallace served in the House for 8 years (1994-2002), but is definitely not the establishment choice among state Republicans in the race to succeed Jim Norman in the state Senate. That would be Legg, who recently changed his voter registration, driver's license, and financial disclosure forms to an address in SD-17, which consists of parts of Hillsborough and Pasco Counties.
That means he no longer resides in House District 46, which covers West Pasco County, stretching from Port Richey to the Hernando County line. State law says a representative doesn't have to live in the district that he or she runs in, but they must live there after being elected (readers might recall the issue came up in the House District 58 special election race in Tampa in early 2010, when Democrat Janet Cruz ran for the West Tampa-Seminole Heights seat while living outside of the district in South Tampa).
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2012.