Karl Rove is still a reprobate.

I said it before, and I will say it again: Karl Rove is a reprobate. The latest evidence shows that Karl broke the law (again) and then did something that that was none of his damn business and not within his authority.

Breaking the law

• Taxes and homesteads
  

On September 3, 2005, the Washington Post published an article entitled "Rove Not Entitled to D.C. Homestead Deduction." Here is the opening of the article:

Presidential adviser Karl Rove may live in Washington. But in his heart -- and for voting purposes -- he remains a Texan. Which means he is not legally entitled to the homestead deduction and property tax cap he's been getting on his Palisades home for the past 3 1/2 years.

This week, the D.C. tax collector was alerted to the problem. And Rove agreed to reimburse the District for an estimated $3,400 in back taxes, city officials said.

It turns out that in 2002, the law in D.C. changed, allowing a homestead exemption to be claimed only for residents who are not registered to vote somewhere else, and Karl has been registered to vote in Texas since that time. And this is where the spin machine starts flinging bullshit.

The D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue has tried to take the blame. In a letter to Rove, chief tax assessor Thomas W. Branham said the following: ""OTR failed to rescind the benefit when the law changed. As a result of OTR's error, the property inadvertently received tax deductions for which you no longer qualified." White House spokeswoman Erin Healy said, "When Mr. Rove purchased the home in January 2001, he qualified for the exemption. He was not made aware of the changes in D.C. law. Now that it has been brought to his attention, he is making restitution. He certainly was not trying to mislead anybody." This is crap because of a little thing known as constructive notice. Every citizen is deemed to have constructive notice of the public laws. In other words, "ignorance of the law is no excuse." Thus, even if the Office of Tax and Revenue made a mistake, Rove was charged with notice of the change in the law, meaning the Office of Tax and Revenue was under no obligation to make Rove aware of the law. So basically Rove waited until he got caught to become a good citizen.

I am curious as to why Branham wrote his letter. My guess is that it was out of fear that Rove would seek some sort of retribution if such a letter had not been written. If that seems too petty to be possible, read the next section and then tell me what you think...

Oh, but Karl committed more trangressions. As the Washington Post noted, Rove had a home in Austin until he sold it in 2003, and he claimed a homestead exemption on that home until it was sold. That means that Rove was claiming a homestead exemption on two homes in separate jurisdictions. Guess what? That is illegal. I suppose that we will soon hear Erin Healy say it is the fault of the governmental entities that Rove did not know this.

But wait, there's more...

• Voter registration
  

Rove determined that he would forego the D.C. homestead exemption so he could keep his Texas voting status. Currently, Rove is registered to vote in Kerr County, Texas (which is in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, which is heaven on earth, in my humble Texas-centric opinion). It turns out that Rove owns two rental properties there, and that could be a problem, because in Texas, registering to vote in a county where you do not live is against the law (see §§ 13.001 and 13.007 of the Texas Election Code). Section 1.015 of the Texas Election Code defines "residence."

(a) In this code, "residence" means domicile, that is, one's home and fixed place of habitation to which one intends to return after any temporary absence.

(b) Residence shall be determined in accordance with the common-law rules, as enunciated by the courts of this state, except as otherwise provided by this code.

(c) A person does not lose the person's residence by leaving the person's home to go to another place for temporary purposes only.

(d) A person does not acquire a residence in a place to which the person has come for temporary purposes only and without the intention of making that place the person's home.

While under this definition one cannot conclusively say that Rove violated the law, the evidence weighs heavily in that direction. As the September 3 Washington Post article noted,

But as far as the locals know, the couple have never actually lived in either of two tiny rental cottages Rove claims as his residence on Texas voter registration rolls. The largest is 814 square feet and valued by the county at about $25,000.

"I've been here 10 years and I've never seen him. There are only, like, three grocery stores in town. You'd think you'd at least see him at the HEB" grocery, said Greg Shrader, editor and publisher of the Kerrville Daily Times.

The San Antonio Express presented further evidence in a September 10 article:

The two small stone cottages owned by Rove and wife Darby are part of a bed and breakfast complex overlooking the Guadalupe River outside Ingram.

When the Roves aren't there — which locals say is most of the time — they are rented to guests of nearby River Oaks Lodge, which the Roves once owned as well.

The nearest neighbor, Bill Petty, estimated he'd seen Karl Rove there about five times since 2000, mostly near holidays.

"We see him out walking around getting a signal on the cell phone more than anything," said Petty, 65.

*******

Described by some as the second most powerful man in Washington, Rove's name didn't resonate with some Kerr County residents this week.

"Never heard of him," Jim West, 50, said as he munched on two sausage rolls at The Dam Store about a mile from Rove's cottage.

Storeowner Richard Land, 52, knew the Rove name, but not the profile that accompanied it.

"I wouldn't know him if he walked in and slapped me in the face," he said.

This article also quoted Tom Mock, Chairman of the Kerr County Republican Party, as saying that he has never met Rove and isn't sure he would recognize Rove if their paths crossed.

As I said, none of this is conclusive, for a key under § 1.015 is whether a person "intends to return after any temporary absence." However, as shown above, it looks like Rove never established Kerr County as a residence in the first place. And as for his intention to live in either of the two small rental properties (494 sq. ft. and 814 sq. ft.), Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, made a very good point: "Karl Rove doesn't intend to live there. He's a very rich man. He's wouldn't live in an 814-square-foot cottage."

Mind your own business.

The September 3 Washington Post article contained the following paragraph:

Down in Texas, when you register to vote in a place where you don't actually live, the county prosecutor can come after you for voter fraud, said Elizabeth Reyes, an attorney with the elections division of the Texas Secretary of State. Rove's rental cottage "doesn't sound like a residence to me, because it's not a fixed place of habitation," she said. "If it's just property that they own, ownership doesn't make that a residence."

Under Texas law, Reyes's statements are correct. About a week later, the Washington Post ran a correction to this article:

A Sept. 3 article about whether presidential adviser Karl Rove had legal residency in Texas and a follow-up item Sept. 7 were mistaken in reporting that an attorney with the elections division of the Texas secretary of state's office was speaking specifically about Rove when she described state residency requirements. The attorney, Elizabeth Reyes, was not asked about Rove by name. The articles also should have included Reyes's statement that an individual's intent to return to Texas is a primary factor in qualifying for residency.

Why does any of this matter? It turns out that shortly after the September 3, Reyes no longer had a job. As reported by the Washington Post on September 10,

Scott Haywood, a spokesman for Texas Secretary of State Roger Williams, confirmed yesterday that Reyes is no longer employed, but he declined to provide details, saying it was a personnel matter. Haywood had said late last Saturday that Reyes "was not authorized to speak on behalf of the agency."

Reyes provided more details. She said she was fired for violating the Secretary of State's press policy.

"The policy allows us to talk to members of the media," she said. "The policy says if it's a controversial issue or a special issue, it needs to be forwarded on to someone else. Just talking to the media doesn't violate it, as I read it. . . . Karl Rove didn't come up. It wasn't something you could classify as controversial."

Reyes's conclusion is at the least reasonable, as the Post admitted that the reporter never mentioned Rove by name. However, the Post also stated that in a second interview with Reyes, the reporter did "inquir[e]...about a presidential adviser who had moved from Texas to Washington." Still, there were no questions about Rove specifically, and Reyes did not use Rove's name. So why did she get fired?

The Dallas Morning News provided some insight in a September 16 article entitled "Lawyer was fired after Rove called."

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove personally called the Texas secretary of state about a newspaper story quoting a staff lawyer about whether Mr. Rove was eligible to vote in the state.

The lawyer was subsequently fired.

Secretary of State Roger Williams said that he decided to dismiss the lawyer after talking with Mr. Rove but that the White House adviser didn't request that he do so.

"Absolutely not," said Mr. Williams, a longtime supporter of President Bush and a major GOP fundraiser.

Yeah, right. Anyone believing that will be interested to know I have some more beachfront property in Wichita Falls for sale.

How petty can you get? A lawyer says something that correctly states the law and does not mention Rove or the specific properties he owns and Rove has her fired.

And that presents an irony of ironies. If the Washington Post reporter is telling the truth when she says she told Reyes that the inquiry was about a Presidential adviser, it means that Karl Rove got all bent out of shape about a matter in which his name was not specifically said, and yet he claims that saying "Wilson's wife" gets him off the hook for outing Valerie Plame.

What an asshole.