Rahm Emanuel Gets Thrown off the Chicago Mayoral Ballot … Says, “He Will Prevail”

After having his name taken off the Chicago Mayoral ballot, Rahm Emanuel says he will prevail. Of course he will, its the Chicago way.

Rahm Emanuel was thrown off the ballot for mayor of Chicago Monday by an appellate court panel. Wow, who would have thought an Illinois court would have done such a thing? The court decision can be read HERE.  The Court concluded, by a 2 to 1 vote, that the  Emanuel neither meets the municipal code’s requirement that he have ‘resided’ in Chicago for the year preceding the election, nor falls within any exception to the requirement.

Rahm Emanuel was thrown off the ballot for mayor of Chicago Monday by an appellate court panel. But Emanuel ­— who has led the other candidates in fund-raising and in public opinion polls — cautioned he won’t get off the ballot without a fight.

“I have no doubt, at the end we will prevail at this effort,” Emanuel told reporters at the Berghoff Restaurant.

The Chicago Board of Elections planned to start printing ballots without Emanuel’s name unless Emanuel’s lawyers can get a “stay” of the appellate court ruling. Emanuel’s lawyers filed their request for a stay just before 5 p.m. Monday.

“We … order that the candidate’s name be excluded (or if, necessary, be removed) from the ballot,” Judge Thomas Hoffman wrote in the opinion upholding the requirement under the state’s municipal code that candidates for mayor in Illinois must have “resided in” the town where they are running for a year before Election Day — in this case Feb. 22. Hoffman was joined by Justice Shelvin Marie Louise Hall.

Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel filed papers Monday night with the Illinois Supreme courtto request a stay to allow ballots to be printed with Emanuel’s name on them. Of course he did and who does not really think that in the end, Emanuel’s name will not be on them? Can you imagine the profanity laced tirade that must have occurred when  Emanuel was told of the court decision?

I tend to agree with Blue Crab Boulevard, knowing the corruption of Chicago politics, Emanuel will be put back on the ballot and the law be damned. This decision will be overturned and Emanuel will be added back on the ballot. Why would anyone think that rules that prevent “carpetbagging” would apply to an Obamaite.

Exit question: Why do we have residency requirements for eligibility in the first place? If a lifelong New Yorker shows up in Chicago and decides he wants to run for mayor right away, why not leave it to voters to decide whether they want him or not? His opponents will end up destroying him over it in campaign ads (he’s a carpetbagger, he doesn’t know the city and its needs, etc), so it’s not like voters won’t know he’s from out of town by the time they go to the polls. In an age of mass media, there’s no good reason I can think of to impose a total statutory bar to office on this ground.