Somehow this question seems to keep coming up, despite being one of the easiest things imaginable to answer. Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez actually reside in the district where she ran for Congress and won her current seat? (That a requirement in New York, by the way.) The New York Post has been looking into the issue because it seems as if nobody else living at her address of record can remember ever seeing her there. It’s a real mystery.
US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez scrambled Sunday to explain why neighbors at her listed Bronx address never saw her there — and ended up claiming she recently relocated to a larger place nearby.
The day after The Post reported that residents said they had never seen her around — and she ducked questions about it after an appearance — her spokesman said the Democratic freshman congresswoman now lives with her boyfriend in a two-bedroom apartment “a block and a half away.’’
The pair relocated there earlier this month, he said.
This whole thing had an odd feel to it. Asking someone where they live, even if the press doesn’t publish the exact address for privacy and security reasons, seems like a fairly simple and reasonable proposition. Why would AOC duck the question from a reporter? And how would one of her spokespeople either not know where she lived or refuse to confirm that the address was in the district?
That was at least partially cleared up later on. Now she’s confirmed that she moved in with her boyfriend, only a few blocks away.
A day after residents at the Democratic congresswoman’s listed address told The Post they’d never seen her around, her spokesman on Sunday said she moved recently to a larger apartment “a block and a half away” with her boyfriend.
In a tweet, the left-wing darling also said she remained a Bronx resident.
“I still live in my hood and literally instagrammed from my apartment tonight,” Ocasio-Cortez, 29, wrote in response to The Post’s reporting.
Fair enough, I suppose. And if she doesn’t want to release the boyfriend’s specific address because she’s been the subject of threats, that’s fair too. We can trust the Post to do the legwork and check that out. But by her own admission, reiterated by her staff, that relocation to the boyfriend’s apartment only happened earlier in February.
So where was she living all through the campaign, the election, and through the end of January? Now we’re back to the old address at the property owned by her mother. But that doesn’t answer the question of why nobody at that old address can recall having seen her.
Even that question doesn’t lead to an immediate conclusion of having broken the state’s election laws. Maybe she’s just out and about so often that she never sees her neighbors. The only thing that matters should be her legal address of record. Where does she get her mail? Is her name on the lease? Does she spend a reasonable number of nights per month sleeping there?
All of those questions should be easy enough to answer and prove, and if the answers are as previously claimed, there’s no problem. So why does it sound like the press is having to pull teeth to sort this out?
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