As the Georgia Senate runoff election enters its final days, the Republican candidate, Herschel Walker, has been accused of carpetbagging. Tapes have surfaced in which he nonchalantly tells the people of Georgia that his home is in Texas. “I live in Texas,” Walker said in January 2022 while speaking to the College Republicans of the University of Georgia. Why did he decide to run for the U.S. Senate? “As I was sitting in my home in Texas, I was seeing what was going on in this country with how they were trying to divide people.”
Whether this late-campaign revelation will hurt Walker’s chances in Tuesday’s election remains to be seen. Even before the CNN tapes emerged, it was well-known that Walker’s ties to the state of Georgia were by now tenuous. But they were not always so. He was born in Augusta, Ga., in 1962, raised in Wrightsville, and he played football and ran track at the University of Georgia, where he was a three-time All American and the winner of the 1982 Heisman Trophy.
Walker Texas Ranger
Walker played professional football for a number of National Football League teams, most notably the Dallas Cowboys. His tax records indicated that Walker’s primary residence for 2021-2022 was Tarrant County, Texas.The carpetbagger accusation is unlikely to be determinative. His authentic roots in Georgia and the fact that he is one of the most accomplished athletes to come out of the state, not to mention that he was a celebrated NFL running back, may neutralize the fact that he no longer really lives there. He has stronger heritage ties to Georgia than to any other state.
The Origin of the Term
The term was coined in the former Confederacy in the aftermath of the Civil War. Hundreds of northerners flocked to southern states to take advantage of the political and economic opportunities associated with Reconstruction. In 1867, Tennessee Secretary of State Andrew J. Fletcher said, “For the adventurer and the office-seeker who comes among us with one dirty shirt and a pair of dirty socks, in an old rusty carpetbag, and before his washing is done becomes a candidate for office, I have no welcome.” A carpetbag was an inexpensive suitcase with carpet material on its sides.
The U.S. Constitution has only three requirements for an aspiring senator. Article I, Section 3 says, “No Person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty Years and been nine Years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.” “When elected” is a pretty vague requirement. The federal courts have been consistent in ruling that states cannot impose further restrictions on Senate candidates. Even a recent or indeed temporary residence in a state meets the Constitution’s requirements, though voters may demand a more rooted commitment to their state when they enter the voting booth.