Schoenburg: With long-time home in Springfield, why does candidate’s father vote, get elected delegate from Taylorville?

Martin Davis, father of U.S. Rep. Rodney Davis, R-Taylorville, has had a home on Springfield’s west side since 1994, voted from there for decades and takes a homestead exemption on the property.

But that home is in the 18th Congressional District -- not his son’s 13th Congressional District.

Well, Illinois law is not super-strict concerning what you call your voting residence, and since the 2016 primary, Martin Davis has been voting in the 13th. And in this year’s primary, he was elected a 13th district delegate to the Republican National Convention, pledged to President Donald Trump. Rep. Davis is an honorary co-chair of the Trump campaign in Illinois.

The address the elder Davis uses as a base for his votes and candidacy is a modest one-story home in Taylorville, between a Walgreens and an auto repair shop, with its back yard near one of his McDonald’s restaurants. He purchased the home in 2013 -- after his son won his first election to Congress, in 2012.

It’s not clear how often the elder Davis stays at the Taylorville home. He didn’t return messages.

There are clear indications that Martin Davis considers his Springfield home his primary residence given that he takes an owner-occupied tax break on it and used it as his address in a corporate filing with the secretary of state in December.

But the state GOP’s top lawyer says the Taylorville home is fine as a voting base and running for election. Rep. Davis says he doesn’t keep tabs on where his father sleeps but likens his being registered to vote in Taylorville to a college student being away from one home and registering and voting from campus.

Burt Odelson, a Chicago election lawyer knowledgeable about residency questions, said Illinois law got more flexible about residency a few years ago. Odelson tried to block Rahm Emanuel from running for mayor of Chicago in 2011 after Emanuel rented out his Chicago home when he was chief of staff to President Barack Obama in Washington, D.C.

“The appellate court ruled for me that he needs to have a physical presence there,” Odelson said, saying that is “what law used to be. Then, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the appellate court and put him back on the ballot as long as he has some presence and has an intent to remain in the house.

“I would tell you as an election lawyer, you can only register to vote from your primary residence that you call home,” Odelson added. “But where you call home has now been redefined after the Emanuel case.”

Emanuel went on to become Chicago mayor from 2011 to 2019.

As for Martin Davis, “when you fill out your application to vote, you swear that this is your residence address,” Odelson said. “I think he’s OK there. ...The problem I see is the homestead exemption, because the homestead exemption is where you call home.”

John Fogarty Jr., general counsel to the Republican Party of Illinois, said under national GOP rules set for the convention, a delegate elected from a congressional district needed to be a resident and voter in that district.

“I can assure you that Mr. Davis spends a not insignificant amount of time at the Taylorville residence,” Fogarty said. “He does have a residence in Springfield as well. But … he travels a lot. He might be outside of Illinois more than he’s inside of it.”

Fogarty said he doesn’t have Davis’s full schedule. “He stays in Taylorville, he stays in Springfield. That’s the extent of what I know, and there is absolutely nothing that’s a problem with that.” He also noted that the Taylorville property is “not an insignificant drive” from the Springfield home. They are more than 30 miles apart.

Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the State Board of Elections, said the authority to challenge a voter registration rests with county clerks, and Davis’ registration “appears to have not been challenged” in Christian County.

Rep. Davis, following a Springfield event last week, pointed out that his father is not taking a tax break on more than one house, and “a lot of folks own multiple houses.”

“You’re going to have to talk to him about how many nights he can stay in certain places,” said Davis, who is seeking his fifth two-year term in the Nov. 3 election against Democrat Betsy Londrigan of Springfield. “He goes to Iowa on a regular basis. So, those are the types of issues that I obviously don’t keep tabs on with my dad.”

Rep. Davis also mentioned how college students, including his children, can register and vote where they attend school.

Sangamon County records show that the 2019 fair market value of his two-story Lincolnshire home was $225,396. The assessed value is a third of market value. After that value is subject to township and county multipliers, the homestead exemption reduces the equalized assessed value $6,000. Martin Davis’ 2019 property-tax bill on the Springfield home was $5,351, and without the exemption, it would have been $464 higher.

That one-story Taylorville home at 411 N. Webster St., had a minivan with a broken tail-light in the driveway one day last week. There was a Davis campaign sticker on the van’s back window, and there were Davis yard signs in front of the house. The steps up to the front door were covered with green synthetic turf, torn in places. There was jagged hole in the wood above the doorway, near the gutters, and there was a “no trespassing” sign visible through a window by the door.

The two-story home in Lincolnshire had well-manicured landscaping and did not show any signs of disrepair. No political signs were in the front yard that day.

In the case concerning Emanuel, Maksym vs. the Chicago elections board, justices noted that establishing residency requires a physical presence, and an intent to remain in that place as a permanent home.

“Once residency is established, the test is no longer physical presence but rather abandonment,” the justices wrote, meaning it has to be proven the person doesn’t intend to return to the home considered the residence. Emanuel had left some furniture and belongings in the Chicago home, always talked of his work in Washington for Obama being temporary, paid taxes on the Chicago home and kept his Illinois driver’s license with that address.

The appellate court had used an argument that Emanuel needed to actually live in the home for a year before the election, but the high court said precedent showed otherwise.

The opinion was written by now-retired Justice Robert Thomas, who had been elected as a Republican. Two justices – now-Chief Justice Anne Burke and late Justice Charles Freeman – who had been elected as Democrats, concurred with the opinion, but noted in their concurrence how the law has taken some twists and turns.

The Illinois Supreme Court, Burke and Freeman wrote, “has not always spoken clearly on what is meant by residency. … That is why both sides in this dispute can contend that their respective positions are supported by decades of precedent. … (T)he only thing that is well established in this case is the confusion that has existed on this subject.”

As to if the voting home must be the primary residence, Odelson said, “It has to be a residence where he intends to come back to if he’s out of town, or if he’s renting somewhere else.”

Rodebrad Management is a company headed by Martin Davis. In its annual report with the Illinois secretary of state on Dec. 30 -- less than a year ago -- Davis listed the company’s address as the same as his Springfield home in the Lincolnshire subdivision.

I’ve run into the elder Davis in Springfield more than once. I wondered how often he made that drive in from Taylorville. Now, I have a better understanding.

Contact Bernard Schoenburg: Bernard.schoenburg@sj-r.com, 788-1540, twitter.com/bschoenburg