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Subscribe to RSSThe Illinois Supreme Court unanimously overturned an appellate court’s decision to kick Rahm Emanuel off the ballot for Chicago mayor. The Chicago Tribune: “The ballot roller coaster for Rahm Emanuel finally stopped Thursday with the former White House chief of staff very much in the race for mayor and the Illinois Supreme Court emphatically rejecting a contentious challenge to his Chicago residency.” And here’s the court’s full decision.
The New York Times adds, "Legal experts said the State Supreme Court’s decision was probably a final answer to Mr. Emanuel’s situation, which has left this city puzzled and reeling, even as early voting is to start on Monday."
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Thank you Illinois Supreme Court for your reasonableness. Although there was a contrary argument to be made based on legal technicalities that answer wasn't clear and you erred on the side of democratic principles. Now the people of Chicago will been able to choose their mayor. Go Rahm!
What good are laws if they're not followed? More Chicago politics...congratulations. Pathetic.
Perhaps you should move from there....or at least make sure you vote in that mayoral election.
The laws were followed. If you think otherwise, make your legal argument and we can debate.
I own a home in Florida that I rent, and some of my belongings are still in Florida. I live in Illinois. I can't declare myself a resident of Florida anymore. I still have a license that is from Florida, but that doesn't mean I live there. When you rent a home, you can't declare that home your primary residence, you can't receive homestead exemption for that property either. If you own two homes that you don't rent, you can only declare the one that you live in for at least 6 months out of the year as your primary residence. I don't see where any of these obligations were met.
I did read the courts decision, and I find it discouraging that one group of judges can make a determination that can be overturned by another group of judges that can be overturned by yet another group of judges. There shouldn't be that much room for interpretation. I understand that's the way the "process" works, but it doesn't necessarily make it correct.
LED, I agree with your main point that it is discouraging that different groups of judges can come to different determinations. It would be in the best interest of the people of Illinois if these laws were clarified so there can be no potential for conflicts of interests.
I disagree with your original statement that implies that laws were not followed. I believe they were followed based on the way I read and interpret the law. It is somewhat ridiculous that two reasonable people can't even agree on what the law says about something as basic as a residency requirement.
As far as your example above, I believe what you are talking about is the primary place of residency as defined for Federal Tax filling purposes. This is different from "residency" as applies to voter eligibility. There is still uncertainty if "residency" as applies to voter eligibility is the same as "residency" as applies to the eligibility to run for office. I think that the confusion behind all these different definitions of residency are what lead people to think that there was some kind of shenanigans going on behind these judges decisions.
We may have to agree to disagree on whether the law was followed but hopefully we can agree that the laws need to be clarified to avoid any confusion in the future.
I obviously don't live anywhere near Chicago, so I don't have a horse in this race. But since I'm often intrigued by legal issues, I took the time to read the link to the Court's full decision above, and doing do made me realize just how often we - on both sides - knock ourselves over jumping on here to put out our own version of a given story before we know all (or sometimes even ANY) of the facts. In reading just the condensed, sound-bite version of the Illinois law that was making the rounds here earlier this week, I was thinking Rahm Emanuel didn't have a chance and that he and his staff should have done a lot better job of researching the issue before he decided to run, but after reading the full decision above, I realize there are a lot of details I didn't know about that would have changed my opinion if I were sitting in the courtroom and actually hearing what was said.
You could apply that same logic to most of the discussions that go on here every day. None of us are roaming the halls of Congress or any of our statehouses, and we've never gotten past the few rooms open to the public on the tour of the White House. We're not glued to C-Span, we don't attend press conferences, and we're certainly not privy to private conversations, phone calls, or e-mails between our elected officials. Yet we can come on here day after day and state in no uncertain terms what we know for a "fact" to be the gospel truth - about things we actually know very little about.
Funny how even when the Supreme Court makes a decision, it's officially called an "opinion"......
Very insightful... but I'm still absolutely correct about everything I've ever said on here. ;)
Touche, Charles! As far as residency laws go, I always found it interesting that for the 7 or 8 years after my mother and step-father sold their house in Maryland and were traveling the country and living in an RV full time, their official "residence" was a post office box on a Florida causeway. And I don't think any of their furnishings were in that box. But like I said, I enjoy legal discussions, especially when they're conducted as civilly as you and LED just did above. Have a good weekend!