While serving in the U.S. Senate, Evan Bayh didn’t really dream about being back home again in Indiana. In fact, a new Associated Press report reveals that during his final year in the Senate, he didn’t spend a single night in his Indianapolis condominium.
The senator’s 2010 schedule, obtained by the AP, shows that Bayh rarely left the Beltway. And when he was in the Indianapolis area, he usually stayed not in his condo, but “spent taxpayer money, campaign funds or let other people pay for him to stay in Indianapolis hotels on the relatively rare occasions he returned from Washington.”
That may help explain why he couldn’t remember his address when asked in a radio interview earlier this year.
That revelation complicates Bayh’s current effort to retake the seat he vacated in 2011 and jeopardizes the Democrat’s chances of regaining control of the upper chamber. With just 17 days before the general election, it’s also good news for his opponent, Rep. Todd Young, R.
From the beginning, Young has tried to paint his opponent as a lobbyist and an opportunist who came back to the Hoosier state so he could return to Capitol Hill. And while Bayh insists loves living in Indiana, five years with D.C. lobbying firm, McGuire Woods, and three different properties suggest otherwise.
As a result, real estate has played a pivotal role in the race.
Public records show that Bayh and his wife Susan claim property tax deductions on a modest $55,000 condo in Indianapolis. But he also owns a massive $2.34 million Georgian-style home in a ritzy Northwest D.C. neighborhood.
The Bayh family also owns another pair of properties: a chic $2.64 million row house in Georgetown and a lavish $3.7 million beach-front penthouse in Florida.
When pushed on the issue shortly in July after he entered the race, Bayh told reporters that he “has a home here, I pay property taxes. I’ve got an electric bill, a gas bill.” He even offered to show them an Indiana driver’s license.
And so far, those multiple forms of ID have done the trick. Bayh leads Young by 6 percent according to a recent Ball State University poll.
If that lead holds, he’ll return to a seat that was once held by his father, Birch Bayh, and successfully restore one of the oldest political dynasties in middle America. But it’s not clear if Bayh really misses the Senate halls his family used to roam.
In a 2011 retirement statement, he famously announced that he “[didn’t] love Congress” and complained that there was “too much partisanship and not enough progress.”
But Bayh certainly enjoyed the idea of working in New York. The AP report shows that he developed an empire state of mind and spent $3,000 taxpayer dollars searching for a job there before leaving the U.S. Senate.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
