ALBANY (AP) -- New York Republican James Tedisco said it shouldn't matter to voters that he doesn't live in the 20th Congressional District he is seeking to represent, although he's made an issue of his Democratic opponent's Missouri roots.
Tedisco's voting record filed with the state Board of Elections shows his official residence is Glenville, in Schenectady County, and he confirmed to The Associated Press that he still lives there. Schenectady is where Tedisco grew up, went to college, worked, and where his state Assembly district office is located. But Schenectady isn't in the 20th Congressional District, which extends from Dutchess County in the lower Hudson Valley north to Essex County in the Adirondacks.
Tedisco says living outside the congressional district shouldn't matter to voters. As an assemblyman he's represented part of the 20th Congressional District for more than 25 years. Tedisco married a Saratoga Springs woman last year and said he now owns a home in the city where he spends some time.
"Because I have a house four blocks away from the entrance way to Saratoga (County), but do have a house in Saratoga - I don't think that's a valid reason to not pick the best person for the job," Tedisco said when questioned about his residency.
Election law doesn't require a candidate to live in the congressional district for which he or she is running, or even after the seat is won, according to state and federal officials.
Tedisco's campaign has been quick to note his Democratic opponent Scott Murphy used to live in Missouri. Murphy has lived in New York state for more than a decade, and he moved to Glens Falls, in the 20th District, in 2006.
The Murphy campaign had no immediate comment when questioned about Tedisco's residency, noting only that the Democrat and his family do live in the district.
In the campaign for the March 31 special election, Tedisco says he's from Saratoga, and his extensive TV ads in the district promote him as "one of us."
Political science Professor Doug Muzzio of Baruch College said it's legitimate for Tedisco to call himself "one of us" in his campaign, because he does come from the same general area with similar demographics - even though he doesn't live in the district. But that doesn't mean Murphy doesn't get the district because he's from Missouri, he said.
"It must blunt, for some folks, the charge that Murphy is not one of us, that he's from the 'Show Me' state, that he doesn't know the district like Tedisco knows the district because he's an outsider," Muzzio said.
In Assembly announcements, Tedisco says he's from "Schenectady-Saratoga." The city of Schenectady was once a national manufacturing center with massive General Electric Co. complexes and still much more diverse and more populous than communities in 20th Congressional District. The district contains rural farm and Adirondack mountain communities in the north and the farms and artist enclaves of Dutchess County in the south, as well as Troy, a city with a similar history and makeup to Schenectady.
"I have proven, even in a minority situation, it's the character content and quality of your ideas," Tedisco said. "It's the ability to stand up and market them and you get things done. And that's what the judgment should be, I think, for the people of the 20th Congressional District."
On Jan. 27, the state Republican Party endorsed Tedisco to run for the seat over others who had their supporters, including state Sen. Betty Little of Warren County and former state Assembly Minority Leader John Faso of Columbia County, the 2002 GOP candidate for governor, both of whom live in the district. The party's announcement didn't say where Tedisco lived.
The district includes Dutchess, Columbia, Delaware, Greene, Otsego, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Warren, Washington and Essex counties.
(Copyright ©2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
