By Ben Giles | Arizona Capitol Times
Rep. Bob Thorpe wants to ensure candidates for the Arizona Legislature are established residents of the districts they hope to serve.
By some measure, that’s already a requirement. The state Constitution requires legislators to have been residents of the county they represent for at least one year prior to their election, in addition to the requirement that they be an Arizona resident for at least three years prior.
That’s not sufficient for Thorpe, a Flagstaff Republican, who said that residency challenges are a common theme in election season.
Those challenges aren’t always upheld, as residency can often boil down to the place someone calls their home, even if it’s not somewhere they physically stay. Such was the case in 2013, when Carlyle Begay, by most accounts a longstanding resident of Gilbert, was appointed to serve as a senator in Legislative District 7 in northern Arizona.
