This question was brought up in one of the many fruitful Facebook group discussions, which are always civil, logical, and full of constructive ideas (/s). One of the Conroe ISD trustees, recently elected, had listed an RV park as their primary residence within their candidate application. I have no opinions on the trustee or their using an RV park for their address. I know it can be convenient when in between homes or numerous valid reasons. Yet my curiosity sparked when I read the question:
How is an RV park a “permanent residency” for a school board candidate?
It sounded like a valid question to me at the time, as someone with no knowledge on the subject. I assume that if the school board candidate application was certified by the school district and accepted by the Secretary of State, then surely residency is an important part of the process.
Still, it is curious. What about other transient residencies, like if you live in a hotel for six months, or in your regular commuter vehicle? Can a homeless person run for office in Texas? I’m guessing the adage still applies for all things related to law…it depends. (Note, I am not an attorney.)
What are the residency requirements for candidates running for office in Texas, and more specifically local school boards? What is allowed as it relates to “residence”? How are these candidate applications verified by the District or Secretary of State? After all, we know that missing even one item on your campaign application means immediate disqualification without appeal, even if it is an incumbent seeking reelection and their application certified by the District itself.
Let’s explore these questions and see where they lead us.
As someone who has never rented a space at an RV park, I was amazed at what I found when I began looking. They might as well be small neighborhoods with full amenities. This includes clubhouses, cabins, pools, tennis courts, golf courses, and much more. Casinos and resorts also include RV parking, enabling travelers to stop along their way across the States. There are utilities provided such as electricity, water, and sewage hookups. It almost makes me want to buy an RV, but I keep getting reminded about something called our “kid’s college funds”.
There are many who live the RV life, perhaps not owning a home, and moving from park to park, campground or resort. There are guides on how to manage your RV “domicile” so that you can still receive the benefits you need to live such as receiving mail, retirement checks, healthcare benefits, and other necessities that require a physical address. You can declare a home state (e.g. Texas) for your domicile, setup a mail forwarding service, register to vote, update your wills, and a variety of other things needed to prove your residency and get the benefits of living in that state (e.g., no state income tax in Texas).
An RVer can “live” in whichever state they wish and enjoy the freedoms of the nomad life for long stretches of time. For many, they have their “home” RV camp where they park during their downtime from travels, perhaps renting a spot for as long as they need to. It is not unlike renting an apartment and then traveling for work.
There is more to expand here, but we will come back to this later on.
For purposes of satisfying the continuous residency requirement of Subsection (a)(5), a person who claims an intent to return to a residence after a temporary absence may establish that intent only if the person:
(1) has made a reasonable and substantive attempt to effectuate that intent; and
(2) has a legal right and the practical ability to return to the residence.
Further down it provides details on the application requirements, which must include:
(I) the candidate's residence address or, if the residence has no address, the address at which the candidate receives mail and a concise description of the location of the candidate's residence;
(J) the candidate's length of continuous residence in the state and in the territory from which the office sought is elected as of the date the candidate swears to the application;
Next, let’s look at what is provided from the Texas Association of School Boards (TASB):
For purposes of the eligibility requirements, what does “residence” mean?
As noted above, to be eligible to run for or be appointed school board trustee, an individual must reside within the state for 12 months and within the district or territory from which the office is elected for six months prior to the applicable date. In addition, a candidate for school board trustee representing a single member district must be a resident of that district. The issue of residence can be a source of confusion and controversy when conflicting opinions and information exist about where an individual resides.
The Texas Election Code defines residence as one’s home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence. A person neither loses the person’s residence merely by leaving the person’s home for temporary purposes nor acquires a residence in a place where the person has come for temporary purposes without the intention of making that place the person’s home. A person may not establish a residence at any place the person has not inhabited and may not designate a previous residence as a home and fixed place of habitation unless the person inhabits the place at the time of designation and intends to remain. A person also may not establish a residence for the purpose of influencing the outcome of an election. Tex. Elec. Code § 1.015. The Texas Supreme Court described “residence” as an “elastic” term that is “extremely difficult to define.” Mills v. Bartlett, 377 S.W.2d 636, 637 (Tex. 1964). Consequently, the determination of an individual’s true residency for purposes of running for or holding public office can only be made by a court. State v. Fischer, 769 S.W.2d 619 (Tex. App.—Corpus Christi 1989, writ dism’d w.o.j.), (rehearing of writ of error overruled 1990). Unless a person is displaced from the person’s residence due to a declared disaster, a person who claims an intent to return to a residence after a temporary absence may establish that intent only if the person has made a reasonable and substantive attempt to effectuate that intent and has a legal right and practical ability to return to the residence. Tex. Elec. Code § 141.001(a-1).
Based on these definitions, it would seem an RV park absolutely would be a place of residency for a candidate, as it would meet a “fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence”. They can also receive mail. Similar to an apartment, they do have a space that they may lease or park at as their “home” location, and which they are able to return to.
Furthermore, it seems that it does not matter if your residency is valid or not - at least not until someone takes you to court over it.
Case Law
In Mills v. Bartlett, a Texas Supreme Court case from 1964, it details a case about a law student who was also a candidate for the office of County Attorney. Another candidate filed suit that Bartlett did not meet the residency requirements for candidacy, due to him going to school in a neighboring county and not meeting the six-month residency requirement. In the case opinion, it states the following:
“Volition, intention and action are all elements to be considered in determining where a person resides and such elements are equally pertinent in denoting the permanent residence or domicile.”
Bartlett was supported in his residency claim based on his intention and action. The dissenting opinion is worth reading as well:
“So it is my view that to be eligible for the office, the candidate must have become a member of the community and remained so for six months. It is understandable that reasonable minds can and often will differ as to the minimum acts and conduct necessary to meet the legal requirements of becoming a resident or becoming a member of the community; and in many situations, this will be an issue of fact. But just going to a community for a few hours on two days[2] and entering into what I regard as a tentative contract of employment is not as a matter of law enough.”
There are other Texas cases related to residency that I found throughout my search, but Mills v. Bartlett seems the most referenced.
Testing Case Law
While asking around about residency requirements, I was surprised to learn that the Mills v. Bartlett case was actually tested by none other than a local Montgomery County attorney, Eric Yollick. You may know him as “The Golden Hammer”, the owner of a now defunct “news” website that suspiciously went down not long after he used an open records request to get the names of teachers and librarians from a book committee in Conroe ISD, and then shared that information in a manner one may interpret as defamation:
In 2010, Yollick and a band of concerned citizens put on their best Seinfeld sketch, challenging residency requirements for voting within The Woodlands Road Utility District (RUD) by changing their address to a hotel, staying there a few nights, and then voting in the RUD election for themselves to win the Board. They believed the RUD was not properly represented by the citizens that utilized these public roads, and their goal was to get elected for the purpose of shutting down the RUD altogether. They were of course sued by the losing candidates for illegal voting, all of which seemed to revolve around a person named James Jenkins.
Jenkins, along with other Constanza-esk characters, were found guilty for “illegally voting in an election in which he knew he was not eligible to vote.” Facing three years in prison, he appealed and won a new trial. In 2018, he plead no contest and was given probation and a fine. Some of his partners weren’t so lucky.
Their strategy was to show that they had “intent and action” to meet the requirements, and that they truly believed they were following the law after seeking legal advice (from Yollick). However, each one of them had different levels of commitment to the part, and ultimately the “it’s not a lie if you believe it” strategy did not work.
Although I question their risk tolerance and self-preservation, they were actually onto something with this. The only problem was that they did not commit 100% to the plan, in that if they would have lived in the hotel as their primary residence with “intent and action”, without any other place to call home, they would have had a much stronger case in my opinion. Better yet, they should have purchased an RV and parked it somewhere within the District. Instead, they almost purposely showed their hand on what they were doing from the start.
If I am reading the case notes correctly, they did not lose their case because they failed to show action with their choice of residency. They lost because a group of individuals conspired together to overturn a District and did so by attempting to manipulate voting through ad-hoc address changes. Their intent was to circumvent residency requirements in order to vote.
Thinking about this further though, would they have won the RUD Board if their opponents did not sue? Perhaps.
Residency Verification
Now we get to the core question: How is candidate residency verified? Property owners are recorded in tax records, and you can claim a Homestead Exemption to show which is your primary residence. Renters have lease agreements, bills, and other verifiable information to confirm that they live where they claim.
I reached out to the Conroe ISD legal team to ask which process they use to verify residency for Board applications. This was the response I received and the moment I began to understand the real challenge with residency:
“When candidate applications are filed, the District reviews the applications to be sure the application was submitted timely and filled out properly. If, on the face of the application, it appears the candidate meets the eligibility criteria, the review is complete. Regarding a candidate’s residency, courts have ruled there is no public record that can conclusively establish a candidate’s residency.Accordingly, so long as the address listed on the candidate application is within the bounds of CISD, the application is accepted. Courts have the authority to determine if a candidate actually lives at the residence provided on the application. Texas law does not allow a filing authority to make a conclusive determination about the location of a person’s residence.
Attached are several pages from a presentation by the Texas Secretary of State’s Office that are pertinent to your question:
Interesting.
While digging further into how other Districts verify residency, I found the following article that really paints a clearer picture:
“We do not have the authority to go out and investigate whether or not the individual actually lives in that address or not,” Goodall said. “The courts in Texas have clearly defined that question of residency is for them to decide.”
A lawsuit through state courts would be the most obvious way to challenge a candidate’s residency. Typically, the person filing the lawsuit against a candidate or office-holder would be that candidate’s political opponent.
“They have a clear stake in knowing the answer to that,” Marziani said. “Obviously, they have standing to come into court.”
And finally, direct from the Secretary of State website (emphasis mine):
Texas law does not allow a filing authority (e.g., school district) to make a conclusive determination about the location of a person’s residence, and requires that any such determination be made by a court of law. Accordingly, Section 141.001 does not grant the filing authority additional authority to make a determination based on residence, but rather establishes the elements that must be proven in court in a residency challenge. Under Section 141.001, the filing authority’s review of candidate applicationsdoes not change. The filing authority must accept the applicant’s sworn affirmation regarding the location of the applicant’s residence, and can only challenge the location of the applicant’s residence in a court of law. Sec. 141.001, House Bill 831 (2019).
Summary
Based on the information collected, we have learned the following:
A candidate for a school board, or most offices in Texas, can list any address they wish in their candidacy application, as long as it is not a PO Box or Rural Route, and within the bounds of the District office they are running for. They sign a sworn affidavit that the information they are providing is accurate.
The school district (i.e., filing authority) is not required to verify residency and must accept whichever location information is provided by the candidate.
The only way to challenge a candidate’s residency is through the courts, likely initiated by other challengers running for the same office who wish to contest their opponent’s residency qualifications.
Conclusion
Yes, you can use an RV park as your permanent residence to run for your local school board. Whether it survives a court challenge from your opponent is still up for debate.
Parting Thoughts
Through what I have learned and shared here, I am hoping others that read this may help fill in the gaps or provide the case law that I am missing. Here are my other thoughts around the question on candidates and their residency:
It seems it is easier to run for office in Texas than it is to vote, as verification for voting requires more identification than submitting your candidacy application.
During a court challenge, what is acceptable evidence to show a 6-month residency within the District?
How do you prove residency in transient locations? Would you provide a hotel receipt, your RV park rental agreement, your tent number under I-45?
You could theoretically stay at a hotel or rent an RV, stay at a location within the District long enough to meet the requirements (or not), get elected, and then move outside the District without much fuss. It would take someone purposely investigating these things, and with the wherewithal to bring you to court, to hold you accountable. This seems ripe for abuse.
I still did not find a clear answer if a homeless person can run for office. Based on what we've seen here, the answer would likely be yes.
Although I believe we found the answer to the original question, residency requirements for those seeking office still appears to be clear as mud…even in Texas.
