PITTSBURGH (TNS) — It seems like anyone who has ever thought of running for office in Pennsylvania will be running in 2022.

Want to be governor? This is your shot. Lieutenant governor? Give it a whirl.

Sure, all of the U.S. House seats will be on the table with their spanking new districts that aren’t even set yet, but the big congressional prize will be the U.S. Senate seat about to be vacated by Pat Toomey, the two-term Republican who has been a solidly, classically conservative voice since taking longtime incumbent and GOP turncoat Arlen Specter’s seat in 2010.

There has been no shortage of interest in that seat from both parties. It is the first time Pennsylvania will elect a U.S. senator without an incumbent of any kind on the ticket since 1980, when Specter defeated former Pittsburgh Mayor Pete Flaherty for retiring Richard Schweiker’s seat.

The long list of candidates — including former Braddock mayor and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb on the Democratic side and Republican Sean Parnell, who recently suspended his campaign to focus on his family — are fighting to represent the people of Pennsylvania at a time when those voices are increasingly important in national politics.

So it was interesting to see Dr. Mehmet Oz throw his hat in the ring Nov. 29. Not because he’s a cardiothoracic surgeon — there are 17 doctors serving in Congress. Not because he’s a celebrity — it is growing harder to tell the difference between pop culture and politics. No, it’s because he’s not a Pennsylvanian.

Oz, who holds both U.S. and Turkish citizenship and served in the Turkish army, was born in Cleveland and has spent most of his life living in New Jersey. He told Sean Hannity that he briefly lived in Philadelphia during grad school 36 years ago and referred to “coming home a year ago,” but the Philadelphia Inquirer said the address he used to vote via absentee ballot is his in-laws’ Montgomery County home.

Let me be clear. What Oz seems to be doing is legal. It’s also not particularly rare. Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker is running for Senate in Georgia. Oz isn’t even the first candidate for the Pennsylvania Senate race to abandon another state. Carla Sands sold her California house before starting her run.

It’s also not a Republican-only strategy. Far from it. Hillary Clinton was famously an Arkansas resident before her eight years in the White House ended and she ran for and won a Senate seat in New York. Al Franken also moved back to his childhood state of Minnesota to run for the Senate.

The problem is that this is legal, and it shouldn’t be.

To represent the people of Montgomery County in the state Legislature, Oz would have to live in the Keystone State for four years. Just to qualify for in-state tuition at a Pennsylvania college, you have to live here for 12 continuous months before enrollment. Even for regular school districts, honesty when it comes to residency is important. Former Sen. Rick Santorum can attest to that.

But the U.S. Constitution sets no boundaries on residency for the upper chamber of its legislature other than, hey, at least move there by Election Day.

This isn’t right. The people deserve to be represented by one of their own. By someone who understands a Pennsylvania winter and has paid Pennsylvania taxes.

But it won’t change because too often the Senate is the kind of job someone feels entitled to assume rather than works to achieve — especially in a year where so many people are running.

(Lori Falce is a Tribune-Review community engagement editor.)