NEW ORLEANS — The question of whether Dick Cheney is a legal resident of Texas is heading to the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that could prevent Texas' 32 electors from voting for the GOP presidential ticket.
After losing a bid before a federal appeals court to have Cheney declared a Texas resident, lawyers for three Texans said they would file a final appeal with the Supreme Court by Monday.
The lawsuit cites the 12th Amendment, which bars electors from giving their votes to two residents of their own state.
Cheney, a former Wyoming congressman, lived in the Dallas area while he was chairman of Halliburton Co. until he changed his voting registration to Teton County, Wyo., on July 21. Four days later, he became Texas Gov. George W. Bush's running mate.
Cheney's Texas house, meanwhile, has been sold, the Dallas County clerk's office confirmed today. The deed filed Nov. 30 with the clerk's office did not show the amount or the date of the sale to Dianne T. Cash, a Republican Party donor. State law does not require disclosure of the purchase price.
Cash said in today's Dallas Morning News she had been interested in the three-bedroom house in Highland Park for some time. She said she did not know the Cheney family.
Juleanna Glover-Weiss, a Cheney spokeswoman, said Cash did not pay the full $3.1 million list price. The spokeswoman declined to give the price.
In New Orleans on Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Cheney is a Wyoming resident.
The ruling came after an hourlong hearing in which a lawyer for the Texans claimed Cheney had lived in Texas since he bought a house and moved to Dallas in 1993.
"It is clear beyond a reasonable question to us that Secretary Cheney was at all relevant times an inhabitant of Wyoming," said Judge Patrick Higginbotham, one of the three Republican-appointed judges on the panel.