Tim R. Mortiss, if I were into sly quips, and assuming he couldn’t get elected as a write-in, I’d quip on the inability of Chicagoans to spell. Just kidding, of course.
BTW, with my understanding that RE holds a lead at this point, who would you say has the best chance of getting elected if RE were to limited to write-in status?
BTW II: As my borther and I were watching the Bears game from afar yesterday, he expressed an opinion that the the City will go to pot when Daley leaves office. Do many who actually live in Chicago feel this way?
Here is a link to the court’s full written opinion:
As far as I can tell from skimming the majority considers there to be
different definitions of the word “residency” as it applies to (1) voters
and (2) candidates, with the defintion for candidates being narrower,
and a disqulaifying factor in Emanuel’s case.
This seems to be a key passage pertaining to residency:
(p13 of the opinion):
Hence, though Emanuel’s status as a voter is preserved by exception
embodied in sec. 3-2 of the Election Code (cited by Cecil in discussion
of the case), his qualification as a candidate is not preserved:
(p22 of the opinion):
I would have to read the whole thing through again and more
carefully arrive at a anything approaching full undestanding of
the court’s reasoning. However, in the page after the quote just
above the court makes a pronouncement that simply makes no
sense to me:
(p23 of the opinion):
And there are other aspects of the decision that I wonder about.
IMO long-time (lifetime?) Chicago resident Emanuel should qualify
as a candidate under any reasonable statute.
Our man Cecil would be a great person to file *amicus curiea *on
Emanuel’s behalf, and I hope he is working on it as we speak.
Re: your BTW #I, I have no idea. I think Chico might be running second in the polls, but of course that doesn’t mean he’d move into first if RE were removed.
Re: your BTW #II, I don’t know how many feel that way, but I certainly do. We will fall into barbarism for a decade or so, until a new Daley appears just when we need him most. That’s the way it went down last time.
Well I think this is very good for the McCain campaign.
Anyway.
Actually Braun has been polling in second, Chico in third, but Emanuel had 44% and who knows who those people would vote for?
It sounds like most would be shocked if this is not reversed but this is bizzaro world.
Chicago is in for some hard times with or without Daly and he knows it which is why he is leaving now before it gets too ugly. The next mayor(s) are in for a rough go of it.
If this decision stands I would say the smart money is on Chico.
I don’t see a scenario where Carol M-B pulls this off.
And I think it likely the State Supremes turn this entire mess on its head and let Rahm run. The only problem will be whether he is on the ballot or a write-in. The election board said they were sending the ballots to the printers tonight. Without Rahm Emmanuel listed as a candidate.
This actually does bring up an interesting question, though perhaps a bit of a hijack.
Say the ballots are printed without Emmanuel on them, but the Supreme Court rules on the eve of the election that he can indeed run. There’s no time to print new ballots, and voters must write him in.
How close must the spelling be for a valid vote? Would every “Ram Emannuall” and “Rom Amanual” and even “Ron Imaanel” go into Rahm’s column?
They just went through that in Alaska, and I believe they required exactly correct spelling. If I were Rahm, I wouldn’t want to hang my future on the spelling prowess of the products of the Chicago Public School system!
But that was a question of state law, and the article goes on to say it needs to be re-written to avoid such ambiguity in the future. Don’t know what the Chicago electoral law says about this.
Again, I am delighted to point out that The Onion has reported a verdict. CHICAGO—In a unanimous decision handed down on Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was sleazy enough to be included on Chicago’s mayoral ballot. “It is the opinion of this court that Mr. Emanuel is coarse, vulgar, and power-hungry to such a degree that he should be eligible to hold this city’s highest office,” Illinois Justice Robert R. Thomas wrote in his majority opinion, adding that Emanuel also met a key stipulation requiring that any mayor of Chicago be a bully willing to do whatever is necessary to push his agenda through the city council. “Further, Mr. Emanuel is a sleazebag and a sleazeball, both of which are criteria he fulfilled prior to filing his papers with the local election board.” The decision overturned an appellate court’s ruling that Emanuel was only sleazy enough to be the governor of Illinois, and that he lacked the slithery, snake-like attributes necessary to oversee the morally bankrupt cesspool of Chicago politics.