This is an opinion column.

David Cole is in jail today for a crime he absolutely committed.

Last month, the former Alabama lawmaker pleaded guilty to having voted in a place where he didn’t live so he could represent an Alabama House district where he also didn’t live.

After his plea, he lost his office. A judge sentenced him to 60 days in jail. And when he gets out, he’ll have a felony on his record.

But this isn’t a sob story. It’s not even his story. It’s a story about how legal and illegal aren’t synonymous with right and wrong. And what sets them apart can be the difference between a term in Washington and time behind bars.

Related: Alabama lawmaker lives in one district, represents another

Cole knew what he did was wrong or he wouldn’t have tried to cover it up. When the Alabama Republican Party asked for his proof of residency, he gave them an altered lease agreement on a house roughly 2 miles away from the place he really lived.

But Cole’s not the only one trying this sort of thing. Tip O’Neill might have said all politics is local, but increasingly Alabama candidates see the job as remote work. Running for office in places where candidates don’t live has become a thing lately, and it’s no wonder Cole thought he might get away with it.

Who did he think he was? Tommy Tuberville?

Even before Alabama’s senior senator won election, his primary opponent Jeff Sessions and general election opponent Doug Jones raised the issue of his residency. Property records, voter registrations and a TV spot he made for ESPN all seemed to show Tuberville called Florida home, not Alabama.

“Six months ago, after 40 years of coaching football, I hung up my whistle and moved to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, with the white sands and the blue waters,” Tuberville said in the 2017 ESPN spot. “What a great place to live.”

Tuberville changed his voter registration to an Auburn house owned by his son. On the campaign trail, he copped, tongue-in-cheek, to being a carpetbagger.

“He’s a carpetbagger,” Tuberville warned voters his opponents would say of him. “Yep, I’m a carpetbagger of this country.”

Whatever that means. The audience laughed, though.

Alabama voters didn’t seem to care. Tuberville beat Sessions and Jones handily, despite running from the nickname “Florida Man” as he went.

Since that election, though, Tuberville has cut some more threads tying him to the state, the Washington Post found earlier this year.

He sold the last of his property in the state. Then in June, Tuberville sold a condominium he and his wife owned, also in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. On the deed, the Tubervilles listed their post office address as Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. Not Auburn.

Meanwhile, Tuberville’s campaign finance reports show that he has spent more than $36,000 in the last three years on food and travel in Florida, including almost $3,000 spent in the last year at restaurants near his Santa Rosa Beach home.

Why isn’t he in jail, too?

For starters, the residency requirements are different for federal races than for state races. When Cole qualified to run for office in his Alabama House district, he had to live in that district for at least a year before. But under federal law, a United States senator or representative must have lived in their districts a day before taking office. They don’t have to live there before election day.

When a state official does it, it’s a problem.

When a federal official does it, it’s fine.

Where and how someone is registered to vote is a different matter, hence Cole’s charge of voter fraud, not a campaign violation. But as tempting as it is to say to Alabama’s attorney general, “Now do Tuberville,” other public officials seem to be following his lead and doing little to hide it.

At least two Alabama officials are lining up to do a Tuberville.

In the next week, state Rep. Anthony Daniels, D-Huntsville, is expected to announce his candidacy for the newly drawn Alabama House District 2.

Only District 2 is in the southern half of the state, stretching from Montgomery to Troy to Mobile, taking in much of the Alabama Black Belt. Daniels lives closer to Tennessee than he does to the district he would represent if he won.

I spoke to Daniels on Tuesday and asked him if this would be a problem. Daniels, who grew up in Bullock County, said he had spent more of his life in the district than other candidates in the race, and he said voters care more about “deliverables” than residency.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Merika Coleman, D-Birmingham, has filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission and said she is exploring the possibility of a run.

Coleman did not return a phone call, but in a text message, she said she would make a decision soon.

Again, she lives in Birmingham. That’s District 7, not District 2.

Ultimately, it will be up to voters to decide whether residency matters more in the District 2 race than in Tuberville’s U.S. Senate election.

But in Alabama, Republicans and Democrats, alike, seem fine sending a sad message:  I’ll represent you in Congress, but don’t ask me to live here.

It’s a message to their neighbors, too: I liked you well enough, but those folks can get me places you can’t take me.

And lastly, a message to poor David Cole, who tried to hide what others get away with in broad daylight and is now sitting in jail like a chump.