A judge was to consider Friday whether U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is legally able to run for re-election in Louisiana, after a state lawmaker who once ran against Landrieu challenged her qualifications for office.
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A judge was to consider Friday whether U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu is legally able to run for re-election in Louisiana, after a state lawmaker who once ran against Landrieu challenged her qualifications for office.
Republican state Rep. Paul Hollis filed a lawsuit against the three-term Democratic U.S. senator, saying she can't be on the Nov. 4 ballot because she lives in Washington, not in Louisiana.
Judge Wilson Fields planned a Friday morning hearing on the lawsuit.
Landrieu was subpoenaed to attend the hearing, but it was unclear if she would be in court. Her campaign spokesman said the senator hadn't received the subpoena.
Under the U.S. Constitution, senators must be an "inhabitant" of the states they seek to represent.
Landrieu says she lives with her parents in New Orleans when in Louisiana, and she is registered to vote in Louisiana with that address. Hollis says Landrieu is a "full-time, permanent inhabitant" of Washington, D.C., where she owns a $2.5 million home.
"We expect the court to quickly dismiss this tired claim," Landrieu campaign spokesman Fabien Levy said in a statement.
Residency criticism in 2002 and 2008 failed to unseat Landrieu, whose family has strong New Orleans roots - her brother Mitch is in his second term as mayor and the job also was once held by their father. She has been in elected office in Louisiana since 1980.
But Republicans have used the lawsuit and the residency questions this cycle to try to define Landrieu as a Washington insider who is disconnected from her home state and too closely allied with Democratic leaders who are unpopular in Louisiana.
"Mary Landrieu is Washington, D.C., through and through. Our Founding Fathers never intended for elected officials to become fixtures in Washington and become out of touch with their home state, as Sen. Landrieu obviously has," Hollis said in a statement.
Republicans hope the criticism weakens Landrieu, who is targeted by the GOP in its effort to gain six Senate seats this fall and retake control of the chamber.
Hollis, from St. Tammany Parish, was running against Landrieu for the Senate seat earlier this year. But he dropped out in July and threw his support to Landrieu's main Republican challenger, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy.
The New Orleans house where Landrieu's parents live is owned by a trust in which the senator, her eight siblings and their parents share equally.