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| Lugar Spokesman David Wilkie |
..The Indiana Democratic party has combed through records going all the way back to Lugar's first year in the Senate, 1977.
The hundreds of pages of itemized travel expenses were passed along to Fox News. Among the findings offered by the party is that the six-term US Senator has spend almost $50,000 in travel expenses just visiting his home state.
The expenses are necessary, in part, because Lugar has no home in Indiana. The Indiana Senator lives in the Washington DC suburb of McLean, Virginia. So, virtually every time Lugar stays in Indiana there's an added cost."...
Another of the Indiana Democratic Party's findings puts a finer point on the issue. It says Lugar appears to have expensed 325 nights in Indiana over a 21-year period, from 1990 through 2011.
The suggestion is that Lugar's time in the state has been limited to less than a year over the course of two-plus decades. The Lugar campaign says that suggestion is completely false."(Senator Lugar) spends a quarter of the year, every year in the state," says campaign spokesman David Willkie. Willkie notes from February 1st of 2011 and 2012, Lugar has spent 89-days in Indiana. And while Lugar is not "domiciled" in Indiana, he does own a farm in the state which he still manages....The fact is we taxpayers put Sen. Lugar up in nice hotel rooms when he decides to come back to Indiana. Willkie does not point to any other place Lugar stays while in Indiana. Even Lugar has said he doesn't stay at the farm as it is "too rustic." So Willkie's reference to that is nothing more than a disingenuous diversion. If Lugar has spent more than 325 nights in Indiana over the last 21 years, Willkie he ought to be able to identify where the Senator was staying during that time.
It's shameful that we have a Senior Senator who "visits" Indiana instead of lives here.