NO CARPETBAGGER HERE

One Republican candidate said months ago to watch for someone to raise the issue that GOP hopeful Lena Epstein, oil heiress seeking the party nod in the August balloting for the 11th Congressional district, is not a resident of the district that she is seeking to represent. As of deadline for the July Oakland Confidential – nada. So we took our own look. Yep, source was dead-on. Epstein lives in Bloomfield Township and has been registered to vote there since January of 2011, moving into her current township address in 2014. But the township is not part of the district which meanders from Birmingham, the city of Bloomfield Hills, part of Rochester Hills, into the west Oakland lakes area and parts of western Wayne County. Epstein actually lucks out on this one – the U.S. Constitution does not require members of Congress to live in the districts they represent, just to be 25 years of age, a U.S. citizen for seven years and a resident of the state. If she makes it to Washington D.C., Epstein could join a slew (21 House members as of June 2017) of others who don’t live in the district where they were elected. We didn’t reach out to Epstein for comment on her residency because she has not yet responded to any of Downtown newsmagazine’s efforts in the past.