It would seem that Rep. Gerald McCormick got caught trying to make his primary residence Nashville, not Chattanooga.
That is, after all, what he agreed to on an VA loan application he and his wife signed last year as co-applicants and homeowners for a residence in our capital city. It’s also a requirement for receiving a VA home loan. Item 6 of the McCormicks’ contract dated Aug. 4, 2017, says “borrower shall occupy, establish, and use the property as borrower’s principal residence within 60 days after the execution of this security instrument and shall continue to occupy the property as borrower’s principal residence for at least one year .” Item 8 notes that the borrower “shall be in default” if he or any persons give materially false, misleading or inaccurate information to the lender. The contract specifies that those representations include but aren’t limited to the borrower’s occupancy of the property as their principal residence.
Fast-forward to June of this year. McCormick spent a lot of time and energy to prove that while his wife, who works in Nashville, will live in the $487,000 Nashville house, he would actually live in their Chattanooga home in Big Ridge – inside Tennessee’s District 26, which he represents as a Tennessee legislator. But perhaps Item 8 loomed large in McCormick’s mind when, less than a week after getting state Elections Coordinator Mark Goins to affirm his Big Ridge primary residency, our state congressman suddenly dropped his re-election bid.
Now, state Republicans and the Hamilton County Election Commission seem to have gotten caught trying to twist state law to say McCormick withdrew under a provision of election law that allowed them to reopen qualifying for seven days to get at least one GOP candidate on the ballot to replace McCormick.
State law lists seven reasons, including death, as acceptable for candidates to withdraw after the qualifying withdrawal deadline. Reason D states: “Withdraws because such candidate is forced to change residence by the candidate’s employer for a job-related reason.”