Fair is fair, and since I hosted the last big family cookout, and not so long ago, either, my brother Rob Roy will be doing the honors for Labor Day at his place in Falls Church. This meant that I had no related preparations to make, and since I had managed to avoid booking any consultations on Saturday, I actually had an entire day with nothing in particular to do. Cerise had gone to the beach – Chincoteague, Virginia, actually, where she’s friends with a couple of wildlife refuge park rangers and numerous wild ponies. They’re horses, actually, descendants of a small group stranded there when a Spanish galleon wrecked on nearby Assateague Island back in the sixteenth century. But given the available forage – salt grasses and sedges, mostly – they don’t grow much bigger than genuine ponies. And they’re adorable, of course. Veronica was out of town, too, gallivanting – and I’m sure that’s the appropriate word – around Las Vegas with Austin Houston Crockett Bowie Bonham III. Please, nobody tell his wife, because if she finds out, she will kill him, and that is by no means a figure of speech.
That left only my cat, Twinkle, for company. Washington is sweltering under a nasty, humid heat wave today, but on Saturday, the weather was absolutely marvelous, so I threw open the windows to the late summer breezes and ensconced myself on the deck out back with a tall, frosty example of my namesake, made with Botanist gin, garnished with a slice of key lime, and began to peruse Harpers and the Atlantic, while Twinkle purred contentedly on my lap.
Then the phone began to ring. I recognized immediately that it was the land line. The situation being what it was, I decided to let the call roll over into voice mail. It did. Then the phone began to ring again. Voice mail, again. Then it rang again. Voice mail a third time. Then it rang some more, at which point I decided to get up and answer.
“Bad phone, bad,” Twinkle groused as my response necessitated her jumping off my lap onto the deck, “Talk, talk, bad. Come back, pet me.”
Reluctantly ignoring her pleas, I made for the land line cordless set in the kitchen and managed to pick up on the third of five rings. Not bad – Twinkle’s comments notwithstanding – if I do say so myself.
Tom: Hello, this is Tom Collins.
Voice: Sure took y’all long enough to answer. What’s the matter with ya?
Tom: Excuse me, who is this?
Voice: This is Earl Ray Wayne Lynch. I’m calling from Louisiana on behalf of the Rob Maness for Senate campaign.
Tom: Well, thank you for calling Mr. Lynch, but I don’t generally make contributions to…
Lynch: I ain’t calling to ask for no God damned campaign contributions, Mr. Collins.
Tom: Very well, then, how can I help you?
Lynch: They say you give free advice the first time.
Tom: Who is “they,” may I ask, and how did you get this number?
Lynch: I got it from Rand Paul.
Tom: I see. I must remember to thank him appropriately. Yes, as a business development strategy, I offer an initial single session of policy, technical, economic and / or general consultation free of charge to any prospective clients.
Lynch: Well that there’s pretty damn good, because I seen y’all’s rates, and y’all charge out the wazoo.
Tom: You get what you pay for, sir.
Lynch: So this here consultation I’m about to git, it had better be pretty damn good, huh?
Tom: I can promise you it will be worth everything you pay.
Lynch: Okay, then, I reckon it’s a deal. Now, I hear that they say y’all is the smartest person in Washington, DC…
Tom: Which is a lot like being the tallest building in Baltimore.
Lynch: Baltimore? [Expletive] Baltimore! Their crabs cain’t hold a candle to Louisiana crabs!
Tom: Oh, I don’t know, the recipes have a lot to do with it. You know how to make Baltimore steamed crabs?
Lynch: How?
Tom: Wait for a summer heat wave and put on some rubber underwear.
Lynch: What? Hey, look, mister, Rob Maness said Rand Paul said to call y’all because it’s free and y’all can tell us what to do about that [expletive] Democrat [expletive] Mary Landrieu.
Tom: Okay, and what kind of advice do you need regarding that [expletive] Democrat [expletive] Mary Landrieu, may I ask?
Lynch: Well, it’s kinda like that there birth certificate thing with that [expletive] [expletive] President we got. Barack Hussein Obama cain’t be President because he’s a socialist commie terrorist Muslim Antichrist who was born in Africa, and Mary Landrieu cain’t be a US senator from Louisiana ’cause she don’t live there no more, see?
Tom: Mary Landrieu doesn’t live in Louisiana? Aren’t her parents from there? Seems to me I remember her father, Moon Landrieu, was actually mayor of New Orleans at one time.
Lynch: We ain’t talkin’ about her father! That [expletive] [expletive] liberal Democrat [expletive] [expletive] is from up there where y’all are – Washington DC, not Louisiana!
Tom: Yes, like almost every other member of Congress, with the exception of some who represent districts in the nearby Maryland and Virginia suburbs, Senator Landrieu maintains a residence here in Washington and another in her home state.
Lynch: Exceptin’ that her house in Washington DC is up on Capitol Hill and worth twixt two and three million dollars, and her place of residence in the state of Louisiana ain’t nowhere to be found!
Tom: It seems to me, I recall her mentioning to me once that she lives with her mother in a bungalow on Prieur Street in New Orleans.
Lynch: So what’s a fifty-eight year old married woman – with two children, a US senator’s salary and a millionaire husband – doin’ living with her mother, huh? The United States Constitution, Louisiana law and plain old common sense says candidates for Senate have to live in Louisiana to qualify to run for public office! And all the evidence shows that lying [expletive] [expletive] Mary Landrieu don’t live nowhere at all in the state of Louisiana! I’ll tell you what, she lives in Washington DC, and nowhere else! And Rob Maness says, the Louisiana State Election Code empowers our District Attorneys to object to a candidate’s qualification when presented with evidence, and there ain’t no question whatever that there’s plenty of that! All we want is for the proper authorities to uphold the law!
Tom: And legally disqualify Mary Landrieu from running against Rob Maness in the upcoming November election.
Lynch: Yeah, uh-huh, now you got the idea. So how do we do it?
Tom: Do what?
Lynch: Make certain sure she don’t git away with it, that’s what!
Tom: Okay, understood. The first thing the Maness campaign should do is find some sympathetic photojournalist to ask for access to Mary Landrieu’s room at the house on Prieur Street to take some pictures of it.
Lynch: Y’all want to take pictures of her room in her mother’s house? What the hell for?
Tom: To determine if, in the opinion of a reasonable, impartial third party, it appears that a fifty-eight year old woman lives there.
Lynch: How the hell can somebody tell that?
Tom: Well, if there’s a five-foot single size bed with stuffed animals lying on it, and the walls are festooned with Ursuline Academy girls school pennants, posters of dead rock stars like James Morrison, Janis Joplin or Jimi Hendrix, and Delta Gamma sorority memorabilia, then it’s pretty obviously Mary’s childhood room, which her mother has, for obvious sentimental reasons, not been practical enough to convert into a library, home office or guest bedroom. A full color picture of that on the front page of the Times-Picayune should have some pretty strong impact.
Lynch: Yeah, I get the idea; wait a second while I get a pencil and paper so’s I can write this stuff down.
Tom: Sure.
Lynch: Okay, and then what?
Tom: I’d say the Maness campaign should demand that Mary produce some evidence that she either pays her mother some reasonable amount for rent, like any responsible adult should do if they still live at home with their parents. There are millions of millennials, not to mention some aging Gen Y and even Gen X’ers, who never found decent jobs and still live with their parents, and you can bet your mortgage that Mom and Dad make them chip in some bucks every month from their part-time temporary gigs at places like Starbucks, Walmart, Burger King or Jiffy Lube to keep a roof over their heads.
Lynch: And what if she ain’t payin’ her mother any rent?
Tom: Then she should at least be doing some chores around the house, don’t you think? If she can’t prove she pays her mother anything to live in that room, the Maness campaign will need to check with the neighbors and ask them if they ever see Mary mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, washing her mother’s cars, driving to the supermarket to pick up groceries for her mother, walking the dog…
Lynch: Does her mother have a dog?
Tom: Well, if she does, and Mary is living there for free, she should definitely be taking it out for walks. Since it’s New Orleans, she probably never had to shovel any snow off her mother’s driveway, but you get the idea. In addition to interviewing the neighbors, you’ll need to put the place under covert surveillance whenever Mary comes back from Washington.
Lynch: Right – I’ll tell some campaign volunteers to keep an eye on the place.
Tom: No, you don’t want to do that. Hire a reputable private investigator and make sure they sign a full confidentiality agreement. You’re going to want cool-headed professionals doing this, not a gaggle of over zealous Tea Party true believers. And tell those private detectives, whenever Mary visits New Orleans, you want two details deployed – one tailing her and one at the house. The one at the house will substantiate just how often, if ever, she actually visits the place and stays overnight. The other detail will document where she goes – and stays – besides her mother’s place. With a dual pronged approach like that, if you’re lucky, you might even dig up some other dirt on her your campaign can use.
Lynch: Yeah, okay, I git the idea, but damn, Collins, private detectives are [expletive] expensive!
Tom: If you’re going to do this, you better do it right. Otherwise, the whole thing could backfire. You don’t want your man on the nightly news trying to explain how a couple of his campaign workers got arrested for trespassing, voyeurism or violations of privacy while trying to spy on Senator Landrieu, do you?
Lynch: No, I reckon we don’t.
Tom: Legitimate P.I.’s are going to use multiple vehicles, long range cameras, parabolic microphones, surveillance vans and numerous other things you and your buddies on the Maness campaign don’t have and couldn’t use properly if you did. They also know exactly when what they do is legal and, more importantly, when it wouldn’t be and then they don’t do it. On the other hand, your guys and gals are almost guaranteed to step in it up to their knees trying to prove the obvious – that Mary Landrieu doesn’t really live with her mother in that bungalow on Prieur Street, and has not, in fact, lived there for decades. Of course, demonstrating that she’s using her childhood home as fig leaf may not sway very many undecided voters, however. You know that, don’t you?
Lynch: Yeah, really? Why not?
Tom: Because the average undecided voter, while undecided for many reasons, is primarily undecided due to a deep sense of cynicism about politicians. So revealing that Mary Landrieu’s sole legal residence is a mansion on Capitol Hill isn’t necessarily going to cause them to recoil from her with loathing.
Lynch: It won’t? How come?
Tom: Because undecided voters already loathe her – and Mr. Maness as well.
Lynch: They do?
Tom: Absolutely. And the question at the polls in November will be which of those two politicians they loathe the least – Mary Landrieu for being a member of the most ineffective Congress since Rutherford B. Hayes was in the White House, or Mr. Maness for being a member of the political group most dedicated to making the next Congress even worse.
Lynch: Now y’all listen here, buddy – Rob Maness is a true patriot, tryin’ to do what’s best for the American people! Didn’t Thomas Jefferson say, “The government which governs best is the one that governs the least?”
Tom: He may have. He may also have fathered children with his female slaves. My point, sir, is that the only real leverage your qualification issue is going to have won’t be at the polls – it will be in the courts.
Lynch: Fantastic! If that’s the deal, then the Tea Party has an open and shut case!
Tom: It does?
Lynch: No doubt about it! Louisiana law says, for somebody to qualify to represent Louisiana in the United States Senate, the candidate shall, and I quote, “…have attained the age of thirty years, have been a citizen of the United States for nine years, and be an inhabitant of Louisiana when elected.”
Tom: And your contention to His… or possibly Her… Honor would be, “Judge, according to this law, you must disqualify Mary Loretta Landrieu from running for United States Senate, because she is not currently an inhabitant of the State of Louisiana.”
Lynch: Right!
Tom: You realize, I assume, that argument hinges on the definition of the word “inhabitant.”
Lynch: Sure ’nuff it does – that’s obvious, ain’t it?
Tom: But how obvious? Consider the Louisiana state bird, the brown pelican, Pelecanus occidentalis. You Louisianans are so fond of it, you put one on your State Seal. Would you say brown pelicans are inhabitants of Louisiana?
Lynch: Yeah, sure they are!
Tom: Even if it were hatched, say, in Texas or Alabama or Florida – or anywhere along the Gulf Coast, or anywhere in America, even as far north as Arlington, Virginia, if it returned to Louisiana, it would be an inhabitant of Louisiana, wouldn’t it?
Lynch: Returned? For how long? A year?
Tom: How about five years? How about ten? How long does a pelican have to live in Louisiana before it’s an “inhabitant” of Louisiana? A month? A week? If you say a year, and that pelican leaves Louisiana to fly north in the summer on an annual basis, then it never becomes an “inhabitant” of Louisiana, does it, because it never spends an entire year within the state, correct? Or perhaps we could consider an alternative interpretation – doesn’t that pelican, in fact, become an inhabitant of Louisiana the moment it arrives there?
Lynch: Well, okay, then, doesn’t it, in fact, stop bein’ an inhabitant of Louisiana the moment it leaves?
Tom: Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. What does the dictionary say? It says an “inhabitant” is, quote, “One that occupies a particular place regularly, routinely, or for a period of time.” Now we just demonstrated, did we not, that the Louisiana state legislature could not possibly have intended the part of the definition which reads “…or for a period of time,” because if it had, it would have specified some length of time, such as a week, a month, a year, five years, ten years or whatever. Therefore, it could only have meant “inhabitant” to denote “one who occupies a particular place,” that place being Louisiana, “regularly” or “routinely.” So expect your legal opposition to observe for the court that Mary Landrieu “regularly” occupies a place somewhere in Louisiana on trips back from Washington DC to visit her constituents and vote in Louisiana elections, and that she “routinely” returns to Louisiana, visiting her mother’s house on Prieur Street for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Mardi Gras and Easter. That, they will argue, is sufficient for Mary Landrieu to fit the definition of “an inhabitant” of Louisiana.
Lynch: Y’all think so, huh?
Tom: Unless you can come up with an example of some case where a person elected to the United States Senate by the people of Louisiana was disqualified afterwards because they weren’t actually in the state of Louisiana “when elected,” whatever that means – election day, when the vote count was completed, when the vote was certified – who knows what “when elected” is supposed to indicate? But I seriously doubt that’s ever happened, don’t you?
Lynch: No, I reckon that ain’t never happened, least not as I ever heard tell of.
Tom: You know, I’m not an attorney, but I don’t think a person has to be one in order to realize from your example here that the Louisiana state legislature comes up with some pretty vague and sloppy laws. On the other hand, though, you might be able to stretch that in the opposite direction.
Lynch: How do you mean?
Tom: Well, suppose, if you held her feet to fire, Mary Landrieu couldn’t produce enough proof of residency in New Orleans to get a library card?
Lynch: Um… I ain’t got no library card.
Tom: Of course not. Who does these days? But in New Orleans, to get your kids into the local public school or obtain a library card, you need to produce one of the following, made in your name: a rental lease agreement or mortgage; an electricity or gas bill; a telephone bill; a cable TV or Internet service provider bill; a sewage or water bill; an official letter from the welfare department, DSS or DHH; a Homestead Exemption Notice; or, a Property Tax Notice. Now, what if Mary Landrieu can’t come up with any of those? Would she still be able to establish residency in New Orleans?
Lynch: I donno. But I bet she still has her Louisiana state driver’s license.
Tom: Probably. However, what if your guy Maness reads that list to the media and asks Landrieu to come up with at least one of them? If she can’t do it, trying to get around the issue by proclaiming, “Wait! I still have my Louisiana state driver’s license!” is going to sound pretty lame isn’t it?
Lynch: All right! Y’all done good, Collins! Much better’n I though y’all would! I gonna tell Rob that when he’s the next US Senator from Louisiana, and wants some mighty smart advice, he’s gotta call y’all to git it!
Tom: Thanks, that will be much appreciated. ‘Bye now.
Lynch: Sure enough – see y’all next January!