THE MARYLAND MEMBER:

Internal Affairs: Just where does East Bay Rep. Pete Stark live, anyway? (The Mercury News, 03/22/2009)

Republicans danced on tabletops last week after Bloomberg News reported that longtime Rep. Pete Stark, D-Fremont, claims a Maryland home as his "principal residence," thereby snaring a tax break. [...]

A senior member of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Stark saved $3,853 in state and county taxes on a Maryland waterfront home in 2007 and 2008. But Maryland officials are now reviewing Stark's eligibility for the tax break; new rules require that property owners who qualify for the residential tax credits must use their homes for voting, obtaining a driver's license and filing income tax returns.

Stark votes in California and has a California license plate. But he told IA his family spends 70 percent of each year in Maryland, where the kids attend school.