Green card
It’s unclear why the investigation has dragged on. Residency issues are usually resolved quickly—one way or the other. For instance, the state of Georgia previously opened a voter residency investigation into Walker’s wife, Julie Blanchard, on Aug. 19, 2021. The office closed the investigation a month later, finding she hadn’t committed any violations.
Anthony Michael Kreis, who specializes in election law at the Georgia State University College of Law, told The Daily Beast he was “surprised” to learn that the probe was still open.
“I was always skeptical of the idea that Herschel did anything unlawful in terms of the residency issue,” Kreis said. “Residency questions are typically really easy ones, and while this was politically sketchy, I always thought it was a non-issue as a legal matter, so I’m surprised that it would take this long to close the investigation.”
Path to citizenship
Questions about Walker’s residency shadowed his campaign from the start. But those questions re-emerged in late November, a few weeks after he forced a runoff election against incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA). That’s when CNN reported that the former NFL star took a homestead tax exemption in both 2021 and 2022 for his home in Texas, where he had lived for decades—a break only available for a “principal residence,” according to the state comptroller.
The CNN report raised legal questions in both states—tax laws in Texas, and candidate and voter residency rules in Georgia, where Walker had registered to vote only weeks ahead of launching his campaign. However, Kreis said, Georgia’s candidate residency requirements are fairly flexible, with a homestead claim being only one of a number of data points that officials consider.
Marrying into it
Walker and Blanchard had lived together in Texas for years, but during the race they resided in an Atlanta-area house Blanchard had owned for decades, which also doubled as the campaign’s first official address. However, The Daily Beast reported that, previously, the couple may not have personally stayed in that house at all, with Blanchard collecting between $15,000 and $50,000 in rental income on the home between 2020 and 2021.
Kreis offered an anodyne possibility for the long investigation.
“Perhaps, and I think most likely, it’s because the secretary of state’s office in particular, and Fulton County more generally, have been inundated with work related to the 2020 election,” Kreis said.
“That can cut both ways, though,” he continued. “Why wouldn’t you just close it out and just get it off your desk?”
When told that investigators had not merely tabled the case, but had been actively working it this year, Kreis replied, “That’s almost inexplicable to me.”
‘Five Georgia homes where I rest my Georgia bones’
The Daily Beast reached out to Walker and a campaign representative for comment, but did not receive a reply.
When Fox News asked Walker about the residency issues just ahead of the runoff, Walker shrugged it off as a “desperate” attack planted by his opponent.
“Anyone in Georgia know [sic] that I’m Georgia born, Georgia bred, and when I die, I’ll be Georgia dead,” Walker said. “Everyone knows that.”
Read the full story here.
