AUSTIN – State Rep. Jim Dunnam admitted Thursday that he does not live in the House District he represents in the State Legislature, telling reporters that he did not move into his district when the lines were re-drawn eight years ago because he didn’t want to move his children into schools in his constituents’ district:

CBS News, Waco TV, August 26
Dunnam admits that his family lives at the Waco home outside his district sometimes. He says his children are enrolled in Midway schools and that home is more convenient.

Waco Tribune, August 27
“My children have been in the Midway School District since pre-kindergarten and have been in classes with the same kids, and we decided we’re going to maintain a house where they can continue to go to school there.”

KWTX – Waco – August 26
When asked how much time he spends at the house that’s in his district, he responded, “Where I am and when I’m somewhere is not something I think is relevant.”

Quorum Report, August 26
“…my wife and I made the decision to leave our children in the school district where they have always attended school.”

Texas Tribune, August 26
Dunnam says that a conversation about leaving the McGregor home, with his kids in school, was a non-starter with his family. “I was not going to disrupt my kids schooling,” he says. “And I wouldn’t vote for someone who would move his family just for politics.”

Dallas Morning News, August 27
“My wife and I decided that we weren’t going to uproot the kids,” Dunnam said. “They had spent their whole career in the same [Midway] public school district. We sat down and we said we’re not going to move our kids and so we were going to maintain something so that they could go to school where they’d always gone to school. There’s no hiding anything about it. Everybody’s known about it for a long time.”

Republican Party spokesman Bryan Preston called on Dunnam to tell HD 57 residents how many nights total he has slept in the Chilton House in the past 12 months. “Dunnam doesn’t have the legal option to live in one district and represent another. The residents of District 57 deserve to know where Mr. Dunnam actually lives.”

Preston added: “Families move for employment or other reasons all the time. More than one thousand Americans move to Texas every week to seek a better life. Most of us don’t have the option of maintaining mulitiple homes a few miles apart to fool our employers. That’s what Dunnam has been doing, and by saying he wouldn’t vote for someone who moves their family, he’s saying he’s better than they are. Such families, by the way, include the Obama family that currently resides at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC. They moved for political reasons. Is Mr. Dunnam telling us something about how he’ll vote in 2012?”