Posted on 11/18/2010 12:09:56 PM PST by STARWISE
Rahm Emanuel's percieved residency issue is about to get real.
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Next week a veteran election lawyer will file paperwork in an attempt to knock Emanuel off the ballot for allegedly failing to meet residency requirements that stipulate a candidate must live in the city for one year before election.
Emanuel has been dogged by rumors that he's not a legal resident of the city since he leased his North Side home and moved his family to Washington D.C. to work in the White House.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcchicago.com ...
Blagojevich trial delay could hamper Rahm Emanuel's run for Chicago mayor
Excerpt:
There are already signs that former governor Rod Blagojevich's corruption trial will play a role in the Chicago mayor's race. Rahm Emanuel's opponents in the race say he needs to divulge more about his dealings with Blagojevich.
Chicago
The retrial of embattled former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was pushed back a second time this week, from January to April, which will lesson its impact on state and city elections here this fall.
*snip*
However, extending the time period of the retrial means questions regarding Emanuel’s connection with Blagojevich will continue to be a factor in the race. There are already signs that Blagojevich will play a role in the race.
On Friday, the campaign office of mayoral candidate Gery Chico, the former chairman of the city college system, released a statement that “the time has come” for Emanuel “to fully disclose his role in the negotiations with Blagojevich over the US Senate seat.”
“The citizens of Chicago cannot afford to wait until after the mayoral election for Rahm Emanuel to give us all the facts,” Chico spokesperson Brooke Anderson said in the release. “Chicagoans deserve full transparency. Whether he is lawyered-up or not, Rahm should give voters all the facts before they head to the polls.”
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Tick, tick, tick ....
.. Ping!
It's not rocket surgery.
It could be karma! What people do DOES come back upon them!
Insider gossip at the above link.
Courts have knocked down so called residency requirements as a condition of running for office. Democrat Dick Clark had not lived in Iowa for over two years when he ran for the US Senate back in the late 70s.
A court challenge was thrown out.
EXCERPT Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel was twice purged from the city voter rolls in the last 13 months but was reinstated by election officials, who allowed him to vote absentee in the February primary even though he did not live at his North Side address. That's just part of the new evidence aimed at the vulnerable residency issue for Emanuel.
It may derail his ambition to succeed his ally Mayor Richard Daley on the 5th floor of City Hall. According to election lawyer Burt Odelson, who may someday be known around Chicago as The Rahmstopper, the case against Rahm involves voter registration notices and what he characterizes as the "mysterious" reinstatement of Emanuel's voting status.
"We have the evidence from the Chicago Board of Elections. It's all documented, and we'll prove the case," Odelson told me Tuesday.The argument over whether Emanuel is a legally qualified candidate centers around a rather simple state law that has been in effect since 1871: In order to run for mayor of Chicago, a candidate must live in the city for a year prior to the election.
Current state law reads: "A person is not eligible for an elected municipal office unless that person is a qualified elector of the municipality and has resided in the municipality at least one year next preceding the election or appointment."
Everyone knows Rahm was living in Washington, working until recently as President Barack Obama's chief of staff. He rented his Chicago home in the 4200 block of North Hermitage Avenue to developer Rob Halpin, who refused to leave when Rahm wanted to move back in.
Every year, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners conducts a canvass by mail to verify the voter rolls. This past year, a full canvass was done. More than a million voters were contacted. And the commissioners were quite proud of their work. According to Odelson's documents, election officials twice sent notices to Emanuel's house on Hermitage Avenue. Both times, the notices were returned to sender. Each was stamped with Emanuel's forwarding address in Washington. Election officials do not allow such notices to be forwarded to a new address. The election board purged Emanuel from the voting lists for the first time in October 2009, ruling him an "inactive" voter.
But Emanuel's voter status switched to "active" just before the Feb. 2 primary. He voted using an absentee ballot listing the Hermitage address even though the Halpin family lived there and they also voted from that address. Voters purged from the rolls usually present a driver's license, a lease, a copy of a mortgage or other such documentation to be reinstated.
"By some magical means, which I think will come out after objections are filed, Emanuel was reinstated," Odelson told me. In May, Emanuel was again rendered inactive. Just last month, he reregistered, using a new address on Milwaukee Avenue in order to vote.
Contacted Tuesday afternoon, Emanuel's campaign issued a statement: "The board of elections updates voter lists based on a variety of factors — including whether mail is returned from an address. It appears that Rahm may have been briefly placed on inactive status while he was in Washington serving as the president's chief of staff. He continued to own a house in Chicago and it was always his clear intent to return."
SOURCE http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-met-kass-1117-20101117,0,4152825.column?page=1
It’s not rocket surgery.
But it is Chicago! If Rham has the right connections the only thing that will keep him from becoming mayor is if he gets in a car wreck on the way to the inauguration.
I suppose laws no longer apply.......INTENT is all that is necessary ;-)
: > /
Like Nancy Pelosi, Rahm is the face of corruption in his locale...
Wasn’t Obama good at getting opponents kicked off the ballot?
Residency requirements for the U.S. Senate are governed by the U.S. Constitution where there is no time requirement for residency - states cannot add them. Requirements for running for mayor of Chicago would be governed by state and local laws.
I still think a judge will find a way to allow Rahm to run anyways, though.
At this point it would be hard for the Machint to be in Rahm’s pocket and in Barry’s pocket at the same time.
It is unconstitutional for states to impose prior-residency requirements for the U.S. House or Senate, for the same reason that it is unconstitutional for states to impose term limits for such offices: the qualifications for U.S. Representatives and Senators are set forth in the U.S. Constitution (and include that the member be an inhabitant of the state he represents on election day, with no prior-residency requirement) and may be modified by neither a state nor Congress.
However, states and localities may impose prior-residency requirements for state and local offices, and often do, and such requirements are routinely upheld in court. In 2003 Kentucky courts ruled that GOP Lt. Governor candidate Hunter Bates could not run for the office because he did not meet the seven-year (I believe it was) prior-residency requirement for the office (he had lived in the DC area for several years during such period while working as a congressional aide and later as a lobbyist or something). In such cases, the issue is never whether the state may impose such requirement—it has long been established that it may—but what constitutes “residency” or “inhabitancy” for purposes of the prior-residency requirement. I have no idea whether precedents in Illinois help or harm Emanuel’s claim of residency in Chicago at all times during the two years prior to next year’s election.
Thanks for clearing that up.
I’ll bet Rahm finds a way around this, tho...
Worms tend to find ways...and the soil in Chicago is especially fertile.
Yes, Obama won his first state senate race because he challenged his opponents’ petitions, ensuring that he was unopposed, in the primary. He easily won the general election, since the majority of the voters were black and vote for any Democrat.
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