Campaign to Elect Chris Forbush Issues Official Statement on Eligibility to Run for AD40
TO: Whom it May Concern
FROM: Campaign to Elect Chris Forbush
DATE: June 2, 2016
RE: Eligibility to Run for Assembly District 40 – Residency
On May 26, 2016, Assemblyman Ira Hansen issued a letter on his official Assembly letterhead questioning the eligibility of current Carson City resident Chris Forbush to run for Assembly District 40. The eligibility question was raised respecting whether Forbush has been an “actual resident” of Nevada as required by law for 1 year prior to the November 2016 election (NRS 218A-200(2)). As defined by Nevada statutory and case law, Chris Forbush has been an “actual resident” of the State for the time period required and is FULLY ELIGIBLE to be elected.
Issue 1 – Forbush’s Declaration of Residency
An error was made on the Declaration of Residency that Forbush submitted to the Secretary of State’s Office on March 18, 2016 when he filed for candidacy. He put Provo, Utah, as his “actual residence” after being handed the Declaration and instructed by the Office to put down the places he had lived since November 1, 2015.*
When Hansen raised the question of residency, research was done into the statutory law and the campaign discovered that the definition given to Forbush was incorrect. The Declaration did not merely seek to know where one had lived. NRS 281.050(4) gives the following statutory definition: “As used in this section, ‘actual residence’ means the place where a person is legally domiciled and maintains a permanent habitation.” Ely, Nevada, not Provo, Utah, is Forbush’s legal domicile and permanent habitation.
Upon discovery of the error, Forbush notified the Office of the Secretary and the Office informed Forbush he could submit a Letter of Attestation officially notifying the Office of the error and giving the corrected information, signed under penalty of perjury, which Forbush did.
Issue 2 – Forbush’s Legal Domicile
Up until February 1, 2016 when Forbush became a legal resident of Carson City where he now lives, Ely, Nevada, was always Forbush’s legal domicile, or “legal residence,” as the Nevada Supreme Court has defined it. (See Williams v. Clark County District Att’y, 118 Nev. 473 at 482)
“Legal residence” in Nevada law NRS 10.155 is defined as “that place where the person has been physically present within the State” but if the person leaves the State for any reason “with the intention in good faith to return without delay and continue his or her residence, the time of such absence is not considered in determining the fact of residence.”
The law exists so people can leave Nevada to go on vacation, go to school, go into military service, work, or do any combination of things they choose without fear of losing residency, so long as they have an “intention in good faith to return without delay.” One does not actually even have to return without delay. One must only have an “intention in good faith” to do so.
Forbush grew up in Ely, Nevada and graduated from White Pine High School. Forbush left the State, but always with the intention to return without delay. Most recently, for 8 years, Forbush was staying in Utah while sequentially completing his Bachelor’s and then Juris Doctorate degrees, and gaining his Utah license to practice law. His good faith intention to return to Nevada is clearly on display by the following things he has done:
• Openly expressed again and again to dozens of law school classmates and professors his intention and plans to return to Nevada after law school to run for some public office, and his intention and plans to be licensed to practice law in both Nevada and Utah, to which these individuals are willing to openly testify
• Maintained a Nevada Driver’s license for the entire time
• Maintained his vehicle registration in Nevada the entire time
• Maintained his vehicle insurance through an Ely, Nevada, insurer the entire time
• Had contacts with, and sought interviews from multiple, Nevada law firms in an attempt to secure a permanent position in Nevada throughout his third year of law school and after graduation
• Interviewed with a Nevada law firm for a permanent position prior to law school graduation in Spring 2015
• Interviewed again with a different Nevada law firm for a permanent position in late August 2015, one month AFTER having taken the Utah bar exam
Issue 3 – Permanent Habitation
To punctuate the conclusion that Forbush is eligible to run by virtue of his legal residence always being Ely, Nevada, Forbush was actually physically present in Nevada during each and every one of the months in question, for extended periods, November and December 2015, and January 2016. He was only absent from Nevada, and stayed at his temporary residence in Provo, to work at a temporary job he acquired in Utah doing contract work as a document review attorney on a project-by-project basis. His permanent habitation was Ely.
Thus, Chris Forbush has always been an “actual resident” of Nevada, as required by election law, because his legal domicile in Ely, Nevada, and his permanent habitation and actual physical presence in Ely, Nevada, clearly establish he has always been a Nevada citizen resident. Forbush therefore remains FULLY ELIGIBLE to run for Assembly District 40.
Respectfully,
Campaign to Elect Chris Forbush
*Notably, the Nevada Supreme Court has stated that “a person may have several actual residences” meaning places where they are physically present, where they physically live. See Williams v. Clark County District Att’y, 118 Nev. 473 at 483. However, in cases of elections, the Nevada Supreme Court has declared that the “actual residence” as required by statute includes two parts, both needing to be present within the State or District as the case may be: 1)Legal Residence, and 2)at least one Actual Residence where one maintains a physical presence. Id. at 482. This two-part “actual residence” is what we now believe the Declaration of Residency was asking to know, not just the kind of actual residence that is understood to be a place where a person has physically lived or has a physical presence.
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