McLean, Virginia, resident considers race for Oklahoma senate seat

Politico is reporting that former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating is considering running to fill the unexpired term of U. S. Sen. Tom Coburn, who is resigning at the end of 2014. Property and campaign contribution records indicate, and autobiographical blurbs confirm, that Keating is and has been a resident of McLean, Virginia, since shortly after leaving the Governor's Mansion in 2003, although he and his wife Cathy have continued to vote in Oklahoma.

Beginning shortly after his departure from the Governor's office, Frank Keating served for nearly eight years as president and CEO of the American Council of Life Insurers, moving to the American Bankers Association in November 2010. Throughout his post-gubernatorial career, he has been a registered Federal lobbyist. (Here is the most recent report from the American Bankers Association, for 4th Quarter of 2013. Here is the form adding Keating's name to the ABA's lobbyist registration, dated January 19, 2011. Keating's name appears on the American Council of Life Insurance's lobbying reports as early as the 2003 mid-year report, filed on August 7, 2003. Here is the 4th quarter 2010 report from the ACLI listing Keating as a "previously reported individual who is no longer expected to act as a lobbyist for the client.") According to his bio on the ACLI website (snapshot from March 2007), "Frank and his wife Cathy live in McLean, Virginia. They have three children and five grandchildren." (The June 2009 snapshot has the same statement with two more grandkids.) The same statement again was found in his bio on the American Bankers Association website, dated August 2011. (They had nine grandkids at that time.) As of today, the bio has moved to a different page on the ABA website, still listing residence as McLean, Va., but now with 10 grandchildren. (Mazel tov!)

FEC contributor records and property records bear out the Keatings' long term residency in Fairfax County, Virginia. Someone by that name purchased the home at 1111 Crest Lane in McLean, Va., on March 20, 2003. The property was transferred to KEATING FRANK TR -- presumably his trust -- on January 2, 2013. The 5,736 sq. ft. home at that address has, according to the Fairfax County assessor, 5 bedrooms, 8 full baths, and 2 half baths. The most recent assessed value of the home and land combined is $2,326,230.

That address appears on numerous political contributions in his name, including his most recent contribution to a federal campaign, on September 26, 2012, of $1000 to Markwayne Mullin's campaign for U. S. House. Some of his contributions bear the address of his employer at the time, such as his 2013 contributions to the PAC of the American Banking Association, which he heads. The same McLean, Va., address appears on former Oklahoma First Lady Cathy Keating's May 8, 2012 contribution to the Romney/Ryan campaign. She is listed as the chairperson of philanthropy for Express Employment Professionals.

Despite being resident in Virginia for some time, the fact that the Keatings continue to vote in Oklahoma means that their voter records will not be purged for inactivity, as happens when someone moves out of state and stops voting here.

According to the most recent voter records I have handy, from July 2012, Francis A Keating II and Catherine H Keating are registered to vote in precinct 720071, with a residential address of 2121 S. Yorktown Ave. (a condo tower just east of Utica Square), Apt. 1203. No one named Keating owns property at that address, according to Tulsa County Assessor records, but Cathy Keating's mother, Frances Herndon Chandler, is listed as trustee of a trust that owns that unit.

But both Keatings list the following as their mailing address in their voter registration record (at least as of July, 2012):

820 NORTHEAST 23RD STREET
OKLAHOMA CITY OK 73105

Recognize that address? It's Oklahoma's Governor's Mansion, home to Brad and Kim Henry and their daughters from 2003 to 2011, and home for the last three years or so to Mary Fallin and her family. More than eleven years after moving out, Frank and Cathy Keating's mailing address had not been changed in their voter record, something normally accomplished by the voter contacting the county election board. But they have continued to vote consistently, via absentee ballot. Presumably those ballots are being sent to a mailing address other than the one in their voter registration records.

The Keatings voted in the 2004 state primary and general elections, the December 2004 library special election, the April 2005 city bond issue, the 2005 4 to Fix the County renewal, the 2006 city elections (primary, general, third penny extension), 2006 state primary and general elections, the 2007 county river tax, the 2008 city general election (no primary in District 9 that year), and the 2008 state primary and general elections. Frank voted in the 2008 presidential primary (presumably for John McCain, whom he had endorsed), but Cathy did not. They both voted in the 2009 Tulsa mayoral election, a March 2, 2010, election, and the 2010 primary, runoff, and general elections. Cathy Keating voted in the February 14, 2012, school board election. All votes in the records available to me were cast by mailed-in absentee ballot. (I will update this paragraph as soon as I get access to more recent information, which would include votes cast during the rest of 2012 and 2013.)

In case you're wondering, the Keatings don't have a two-state-voter-registration problem. During a visit to the area in September 2010, I verified that the Keatings were not registered to vote in Fairfax County, Virginia, or at least that no one named Keating with an address on Crest Lane was registered there at that time. (Election officials would not confirm voter registration information over the phone; I had to visit the election board offices in person.) There isn't a dual homestead problem either, at least in Tulsa County, as no one named Frank or Francis Keating owns property here, according to the Tulsa County Assessor website.