I smell voter fraud at the very least

Larry Pressler, who is running for Senate in South Dakota as an independent, has his principal residence in Washington, according to District of Columbia tax records.

Pressler, who served as a Republican in Congress from 1975 to 1997, and his wife receive the homestead deduction, a generous tax break meant for people who use their D.C. home as their “principal residence,” according to the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue. The tax break reduces a property’s “assessed value by $70,200 prior to computing the yearly tax liability,” the District says.

The Presslers’ apartment is a 2,200-square-foot, two-bedroom, 2½ bathroom condo in Foggy Bottom, close to The George Washington University and the State Department. Property records show Pressler paid $690,000 for the apartment in 2003.

Reached on his cellphone — with a D.C. area code — Pressler said Thursday evening the apartment is indeed his, and he remained in Washington after losing his Senate seat because his wife works in D.C. He noted that they are “longtime voters in South Dakota.”

The South Dakota Senate race has suddenly turned competitive. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said Wednesday it would put $1 million into television ads in the state, and an outside group told POLITICO Friday it is spending $400,000 to attack Pressler. Former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds was the early favorite in the contest. He faces Democrat Rick Weiland and Pressler. A recent SurveyUSA poll showed 35 percent of voters favoring Rounds, 32 percent supporting Pressler and 28 supporting Weiland.

Homestead deductions have been a political issue in the past. Members of Congress have caught heat for taking a tax break for their residence in D.C.

When he goes to South Dakota, Pressler said he has stayed in Humboldt, where he owns an “interest” in his family farm. On Pressler’s financial disclosure form, he says that he has interest in two farms in South Dakota: one in Gregory, worth between $50,000 and $100,000 and one in Humboldt worth between $15,000 and $50,000.

He said he is not “a rich man and cannot afford to buy more than one house.” His financial disclosure says that he and his wife are worth at least $847,000 and have no debt.

But Pressler has also been an owner of two apartments in Manhattan. He currently owns on East 57th Street between Park Avenue and Lexington Avenue. He bought that unit in 2008 for $655,000, and took out a $200,000 mortgage, according to New York City property records. He previously owned an apartment in the Trump Parc on Central Park South, the swank street that runs the length of the south end of the legendary park. He bought that in 2006 for $360,000, and sold it for $435,000 in 2007. He didn’t respond to an email seeking comment about the New York apartment.

After his defeat, Pressler passed the New York bar and worked again as a lawyer. Pressler subsequently became senior partner of the law firm O'Connor and Hannan, where he served for six years, and then formed his own law firm, The Pressler Group. Pressler is a member of the New York Bar, the Washington DC Bar, and the Supreme Court Bar.

He has also lectured at more than twenty universities in China, India and the U.S., and has been granted two lifetime Fulbright teaching awards.[12]

Pressler has remained active in the political arena. In 2000, he was a member of Republican Presidential Candidate George W. Bush's Information Technology Steering Committee, and also served on the Bush Presidential Transition Team in 2001.[13]

Pressler attempted a political comeback in 2002 by running for South Dakota's open at-large House seat but he essentially discontinued his campaign when Republican Governor Bill Janklow unexpectedly entered the race.

Pressler was appointed an official observer of Ukraine's national election in December 2004.[14]

Pressler endorsed Barack Obama for President in 2008 and 2012.[15]

On November 10, 2009, President Obama named Pressler to the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad.[16] He also serves on the Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission.[17]

In October 2012, based on veterans' issues, Pressler endorsed Obama for a second term with an article in the Huffington Post and on national television networks.[18] Pressler campaigned in a bipartisan team for Obama in the fall of 2012, speaking on behalf of the Obama ticket to certain veteran's groups in Virginia.[19]

He taught as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at Sciences Po University, Paris, France, and Reims, France, in the Fall of 2012.[20] He chiefly teaches international relations to graduate students.

For the purposes of this title, the term, residence, means the place in which a person has fixed his or her habitation and to which the person, whenever absent, intends to return.

A person who has left home and gone into another state or territory or county of this state for a temporary purpose only has not changed his or her residence.

A person is considered to have gained a residence in any county or municipality of this state in which the person actually lives, if the person has no present intention of leaving.

If a person moves to another state, or to any of the other territories, with the intention of making it his or her permanent home, the person thereby loses residence in this state.

In a followup email, Pressler told POLITICO that he “made a decision after my loss in 1996 to support my wife and her business by helping her keep a residence where she built her business. My wife has supported me by traveling home to South Dakota to support me with my work as well.”

“My wife has been the primary co-owner of our Washington, DC residence for decades,” he wrote. “Her principal residence and career work has been in the city for more than three decades, which qualifies her for the Homestead Tax Exemption. Furthermore, she has always paid her Washington, DC Income Taxes all these years which is also a qualifying factor for the Homestead Tax Exemption.”