It’s election time, KC: Do you know where your candidate lives?

No fewer than three candidates running in Tuesday’s primaries to represent Missouri’s 5th Congressional District actually live in Missouri’s 6th Congressional District.

It’s all perfectly legit.

When it comes to location, the U.S. Constitution requires only that a member of Congress live in the state he or she represents.

Still, one candidate in the Republican primary is calling out two opponents for not living among the people they want to represent.

One of those is Jacob Turk, who is making his fifth run at the seat held by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver. Turk lives in the 400 block of Southeast Annette Street in Lee’s Summit. That was in the 5th District before the boundaries were redrawn following the 2010 census.

Turk has won the Republican primary the last four election cycles, and in 2010 — his best showing — he came within 9 percentage points of unseating the incumbent.

Fellow Republican candidate Michael Burris refers to Turk as “a perennial also-ran” and questions whether his opponent is in the right race. Burris lives in the 300 block of East 125th Place in Kansas City, which is in the 5th District.

“Where a candidate lives really matters,” Burris said. “Wouldn’t you want to represent the citizens of the district you live in? He (Turk) lives in the 6th. Why doesn’t he run against (incumbent) Sam Graves?”

Turk claims he was the victim of political shenanigans when the district lines were redrawn in 2011. He says he can still be an effective representative for the 5th District.

“The 5th District is where I lived for over 30 years,” he said Friday. “I never moved. I’m in the same house, and they drew the lines around it.”

Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution says representatives in Congress shall be at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for seven years and an inhabitant of the state in which they are elected.

“Missouri, as a state, cannot attach additional requirements,” said a spokeswoman for the Missouri secretary of state’s office, which oversees elections.

Fifth District Republican candidate Bill Lindsey lives not far from Turk in the 2100 block of Northeast McKee Lane in Lee’s Summit, which is also in the 6th District. Lindsey could not be reached.

In the 5th District Democratic primary, candidate Eric Holmes lives in 6200 block of Northwest 78th Street in Kansas City, which is in the 6th District. Holmes said district lines are the arbitrary result of gerrymandering.

“Emotionally, I’m tied to Kansas City,” he said Friday. “That’s home to me, and that’s the 5th District.”

Turk blames Cleaver, in part, for his residency issue.

“Cleaver feared facing me again so much that he spent his political capital in redistricting on an attempt to stop me by cutting my home of over 32 years out of the 5th District,” Turk said in a campaign email that was provided to The Star by the Burris campaign.

In Missouri, congressional district maps are drawn by the state legislature, both houses of which were controlled by Republicans in 2011. Because of population shifts, the state lost one of its nine seats in the House of Representatives.

The new map consolidated two Democratic-controlled seats in the St. Louis area and redrew the lines in the Kansas City area among the 4th, 5th and 6th districts. It extended the 5th District north into Clay County and east to include rural Ray, Lafayette and Saline counties. The district remains heavily Democratic.

The new map also extended a finger of the 6th District south into Lee’s Summit — what Turk calls “the Turk peninsula.”

Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed the new map, but the Republican-led General Assembly, with the help of a handful of Democrats, overrode the veto.

One of those Democrats was Rep. Leonard “Jonas” Hughes IV of Kansas City, who said he cast his vote at Cleaver’s behest.

A spokesman for Cleaver called accusations about the congressman’s role in causing residency problems “absurd.”

“Voters and our democracy place a high value on elected leaders living in the districts they represent,” the spokesman said.

Turk contends both Democrats and Republicans conspired on an “incumbent protection plan.”

“The bottom line is the people of Missouri were ill-treated by both parties in this redistricting deal,” he said.

This story was originally published August 2, 2014 at 6:57 PM with the headline "It’s election time, KC: Do you know where your candidate lives?."