Patrice Abduallah Never Lived In District 15

Adding more fuel to the swirling controversies this election season is a bomb shell report by Abdul Hakim-Shabazz that District 15 Councilor Patice Abduallah never lived in his district. Abduallah resigned his seat in August after Advance Indiana reported on the fact that he was not currently living in his district. At the time Abduallah resigned, Marion Co. Clerk Beth White's office acknowledged it knew last January when Abduallah filed his statement of candidacy declaring his address on Warman Avenue, outside his district, he didn't live in District 15. Now, Shabazz discloses that an official address list prepared for City-County Council members in December, 2003 listed a home address on Wheeler Avenue for Abduallah, in addition to his Sheffield Avenue address in the district--a home which was in such a state of disrepair it could not have been occupied as a residence.

A person with first-hand knowledge recounted to me an occasion last year when this person gave Councilor Abduallah a ride home one evening. The home, according to this source, was located in an area on the city's northeastside, far away from Abduallah's district. According to his source, the residence is where Helen, Abduallah's significant other or wife, resides. It's odd because nobody can seem to agree whether Abduallah was married to Helen or just living with her. The Wheeler Avenue address on the official council document is located in Councilor Oliver's district.

So why does this matter now? A taxpayer lawsuit, upon which there was a hearing before the Indiana Tax Court this week, is considering, among other things, whether Marion Co's income tax increase is invalid because Abduallah's vote provided the 15th vote needed to pass it. Plaintiffs argue that, because Abduallah acknowledged in a public document he had vacated his district prior to the tax increase vote, he could not legally cast a vote as a member of the council. Interestingly, Fred Biesecker, an Ice Miller attorney working for the City, for the sake of argument conceded Abduallah had vacated his district prior to the vote and that officials in Beth White's office knew this. Biesecker's argument is that it was essentially "harmless error." He says the vacancy can't become official until a citizen challenges it, even if people in the Clerk's office knew he no longer lived in his district. This outcome is necesssary, he argues, because of the resulting chaos and confusion which would ensue if Abduallah's tax increase vote and other ordinances which passed by only one vote with his support were invalidated.

My whole point all along has been the fact that Beth White's office knowingly allowed Patrice Abduallah to defraud his constituents by falsely claiming to be a resident of District 15. This whole story grows by leaps and bounds now that we know the City-County Council has known all along Abduallah never lived in his district from day one. My district essentially had no true representative on the council the last four years. This is also further evidence that Andre Carson's presence on the council now is illegitimate. The Democrats have been defrauding the voters of my district for the past four years. They were then allowed to conduct a caucus meeting at which Carson was chosen to take Abduallah's place on the ballot, even though the deadline for filling vacancies has already passed. Note, Beth White's office refused to allow an independent candidate to file for the office at that late date. Adding further insult to injury, Democrats allowed Abduallah to vote in the caucus at which Carson was chosen. He could not have been legally holding down the precinct committeperson position to which he had been elected under false pretenses.

Republicans should have legally challenged Carson's placement on the November ballot, but since they seem determined to ensure a Democratic-council majority, they did nothing. The irony is that Abdul Hakim-Shabazz is "of counsel" with Marion Co. GOP Chairman Tom John's law firm. If Shabazz has had this document proving Abduallah never lived in his district all along, why wasn't it used by John to prevent Carson's placement on the November ballot? And by the way, Tom John knew before the deadline for appointing a Republican candidate for District 15 there was a question over Abduallah's residency.