Open mayor's race to newer Orleanians

How long do you have to live in a place to be of the place?

The New Orleans Home Rule Charter requires the mayor of New Orleans to "have been domiciled in the City for at least five years immediately preceding the election." I believe this five-year mayoral residency requirement is unconstitutional, not to mention bad policy, and should be amended by the City Council or -- if a potential candidate were to challenge it -- struck down by a court of law.

I write this as an impartial observer, not in the interests of any particular candidate but only with the best interests of New Orleans, my hometown, in mind.

The United States Supreme Court has held that citizens have a fundamental right to travel, and to move from state to state, within the United States. Laws that prohibit or burden this right must meet "strict scrutiny," a legal term meaning that the constitutionality of this kind of restriction is judged by whether it promotes a "compelling state interest" that cannot be protected adequately any other way. To put it simply, because the five-year mayoral residency requirement puts a restriction on all individuals who move to New Orleans, only if the requirement is virtually the only means by which the city can protect a critically important government interest will it pass constitutional muster.

Of course, there is a compelling interest in some sort of durational residency requirement for mayoral candidates. The mayor should be a citizen with whom voters are intimately familiar, and who is intimately familiar with voters. Voters want a mayor who knows New Orleans, and New Orleans -- as we all know -- is a complicated city. No one can learn the lessons required to lead New Orleans overnight. A true newcomer or political carpetbagger could not provide the kind of unique leadership New Orleans needs....