Rick Santorum, coming off of a big week of wins in three Primary Caucuses, now will begin to face…snipers.  Critical investigations of his positions, his votes, and his personal affairs.  The first missile to land is the major story which seems to have played a big role in his loss in the Senate after two terms.

Santorum lost big in 2006, by almost 20 points to Bob Casey, Jr,  the son of a former, popular Pennsylvania Governor.  The story that is re-emerging now is that Pennsylvania voters became aware that Santorum was claiming an abandoned residence near his in-laws, as his Pennsylvania residence of record in order to run for public office.  In actuality,  the Santorums had bought a large, expensive home in Virginia where their brood of 7 children were living full time.  Which makes sense.   But Pennsylvania voters didn’t like the vision of their U.S. Senator not even living in the state he was elected to represent.

Furthermore, while living in Virginia, the Santorums apparently billed the State of Pennsylvania for over a hundred thousand dollars in education aid so that their children could be part of a cyber-charter school.  Living in the State of Virginia, but charging the State of Pennsylvania for expensive services was apparently not well-received by Santorum’s constituents.   The story has been the topic of discussion of many major news sites.  Is this going to become the next attack ad directed toward Santorum?  Here’s the details from MOTHER JONES.

“Santorum wasn’t always so opposed to government-run schools—especially one Pennsylvania cyber charter schoolthat offered students free computers,

internet service, and online classes. Between 2001 and 2004, that online school allowed the Santorum family to live in Virginia, while sticking Pennsylvania taxpayers with a $100,000 bill.

In 2004, Santorum spawned a minor scandal when news broke that he was no longer residing in the state that sent him to Congress and was living instead outside the Beltway in Leesburg, Virginia. Santorum owned, and still does, a house in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania, next door to his in-laws. The Santorums bought the three-bedroom house in 1997 for $87,800. But after Santorum got elected to the Senate in 1994, he bought a much larger home in Virginia that would accommodate his ever-growing family. Some relatives moved into the Penn Hills house, but Santorum continued to use it to claim residency in Pennsylvania, where he voted by absentee ballot.

Did Pennsylvania Owe Rick Santorum's Kids An Education?

Despite moving his family to Virginia, Santorum didn’t enroll his children in a local public school. Nor did the Santorums simply home-school the kids. Instead, in 2001, they enrolled five of their kids in the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, based out of tiny Beaver County, Pennsylvania. The school was founded by Nick Trombetta, a former wrestling coach who set up an online charter school in a depopulated part of the state and turned it into a financial powerhouse that rakes in millions annually in public education funds. (In 2007, Trombetta, a major Republican donor in the state, was the subject of a state grand jury investigation into his use of millions in public funds to build a performing arts center near the school’s headquarters, among other things. No charges have been brought.)

Considered a public school, the online charter’s students are required to take state-mandated assessments and meet other formal requirements not demanded of traditional home-schoolers. But it offers home-schoolers lots of advantages, notably free computers and internet connections. When Santorum enrolled his kids there, the local school district in Penn Hills was forced to pick up the tab for the cyber school, which cost the district $38,000 a year for the Santorum children.”

The sore point with Pennsylvania voters, who clearly gave Santorum the boot after this story broke in Pennsylvania six years ago, is that his new Virginia home gave the impression that he had gone “beltway” and was not watching out for or in touch with his own constituents.  The other big question was why the Santorums didn’t just pay for the school of their choice for their kids, instead of sticking Pennsylvania taxpayers for the bill.

Legitimate question!  You might be interested to know that since leaving the Senate and becoming a consultant, the Santorums now live in another home.  A $2 million dollar property on 5 acres in Leesburg, Virginia.  Public service….pays.

There’s even more here:  http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/rick-santorums-school-scandal

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Filed under: Economy, Featured, Inside The KC, Politics by Sonja Eddings Brown, Feb 12, 2012