Santorum's Daughter Debuts

The senator's office issued a statement two days ago saying he and his wife, Karen, are withdrawing their children from the cyber school. But that doesn't mean they'll be attending any of the brick-and-mortar schools of the Penn Hills district either. The commute from the Santorum home in Leesburg, Va., would be onerous.

All of which begs a much bigger question: Is Rick Santorum R-Pa. or R-Va.? No one should represent Pennsylvania in the U.S. Senate because he once lived here or because he visits all 67 counties every year. A traveling salesman can do that.

Article I of the U.S. Constitution says, "No person shall be a Senator ... who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen." Rick Santorum last won election in November 2000, when he owned the house at 111 Stephens Lane in Penn Hills plus a house in Virginia. Where he was an "inhabitant" at the time only he can say.

He faces re-election in 2006, but if that election were held today, the two-term Republican would be hard-pressed to convince voters that he inhabits a house on Stephens Lane. Sure, he and his wife pay taxes on the house. They also use the address for voter registration, but so do two other people. When a Post-Gazette reporter visited the house last Friday, a young man came to the door and declined to comment. He wasn't Rick Santorum.

It gets worse. The two-bedroom house that the Santorum children called home for education purposes and that gives Mr. and Mrs. Santorum the right to vote in Pennsylvania lacks an occupancy permit. And the property tax break from the homestead exemption claimed by the Santorums on the Penn Hills house is allowed under law only if the dwelling is their "permanent home."

It's a strange case of political turnabout. In his initial House race against Rep. Doug Walgren in 1990, challenger Santorum attacked the incumbent from Mt. Lebanon for buying a house and raising his children in McLean, Va. Now Rick Santorum of Leesburg, Va., is saying that he is and he isn't a resident of Pennsylvania....

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) provided details yesterday of his $500,000 home mortgage loan after disclosures that he secured it through a bank whose top executives were campaign donors.
Santorum's campaign office said the senator received a five-year interest-only balloon loan at 5 percent in 2002 from Philadelphia Trust Co., an investment firm that promotes itself on its Web site as catering to "affluent investors and institutions."

The loan, which the campaign said did not include points, was within the market rate when Santorum obtained the mortgage, according to mortgage rate data.

One watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said it planned to file a complaint this week with the Senate ethics committee, asking for an investigation into whether Santorum received preferential treatment.

Since its inception, CREW has prepared ethics complaints against or demanded probes by the ethics panels or the Justice Department of 12 sitting Republican lawmakers: Frist, Santorum, Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), Rep. Bob Ney (Ohio), Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (Colo.), Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (Calif.), House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis (Calif.), House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Johnson.

In addition, the group has filed Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaints against Frist, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), the leadership PAC of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Texas), then-Senate candidates Mel Martinez and Alan Keys, both Republicans, and the Bush 2004 presidential campaign.

Republican Party officials say that CREW’s activities violate regulations for tax-exempt organizations and that they are weighing filing a complaint with the IRS.

“It’s certainly a possibility. We’re weighing our options on that,” said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Tax experts say that CREW’s seemingly lopsided focus on Republicans will raise flags at the IRS, but they caution that determining violations of tax status so depends on the specific facts and circumstances of each case that it is impossible to predict how the IRS will act.

“At least preliminarily, I think they have a good case,” said former IRS official Richard J. Wood, referring to the concerns of Republican officials. “It looks to me that they’re probably right.”...