The Thune campaign and its cabal of bloggers, my friend Jeff Gannon (good luck finding the story) (and some in the press) made a big deal out of Tom and Linda Daschle taking the District's homestead exemption in the 2004 campaign.

To help shed a little light on this point, a former South Dakotan who has lived in Washington, DC and worked on Capitol Hill shares the following:

I read somewhere where Gannon said that Daschle signed the homestead form where it stated that this was his "primary residence." This was supposed to be evidence that South Dakota wasn't his primary residence and DC was. I guess Gannon was implying Daschle was saying it was his "legal residence."

I'm pretty sure you would find out from DC government officials that t he Homestead exemption has nothing to do with the person's "legal residence." A person who might own more than one property in the District has to declare one of them as the "primary residence" to get the Homestead exemption.

A person can have only one homestead exemption for one property--thus the "primary residence." When I lived in the District, I had my "primary residence" and had the homestead exemption for that house. I also owned a rental house--without a Homestead exemption.

Because I had two houses, I had to swear on the Homestead form which one was my primary residence.

Look at DC St. Sec. 47-849: ""Residence" means the principal place of residence within the District of an individual, shareholder, or member, who is domiciled in the District."

I don't know what Linda Daschle's intentions were if Tom lost the 2004 election.  However, it seems within the realm of possibility she could have met the criteria of being "domiciled in the District" even if Tom was not a "domicile."  My understanding of "domicile" is it is based on intent. 

If there are any D.C. licensed attorneys out there who could she some light, send me an email.  My address is at the left of the site.