Poll: Should Candidate Live in District?

Stephen Labate, the Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, no longer lives in the district he hopes to represent.

When new congressional district lines for 2013 were drawn this week, Labate, who previously lived in Israel’s district, ended up as a resident of  the district held by U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-Seaford.  The Deer Park resident, though, said he will continue his fight to unseat Israel.

To complicate matters, the incumbents’ districts changed shape and swapped numbers, so King’s new district will be the second; Israel’s the third.

Labate is within his legal rights to live outside the district;  Article I, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution imposes few restrictions.

 “No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years, and been seven Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”

What do you think? Should a candidate or member of Congress have to reside in the district?