“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.The appeals court vote was 2 out of 3. Emanuel will now ask the Illinois supreme court to hear his case. The situation is complicated by the fact that time is running out for printing the ballots.
I read through the decision (pdf) , which I found interesting. The court ruled that Emanuel was qualified to vote for mayor, but not to run for mayor. There's no exact precedent apparently, so the ruling makes much of principles of judicial interpretation. It's pretty darn technical.
The judge who wrote the decision is apparently a widely respected judge. Well, now we'll see if the Illinois supreme court will take the case - and maybe issue a stay in the meantime so the ballots include his name.
Ahead in the polls, and in dollars collected,
in this municipality -
but as of today, he's been ejected
on a technicality.
This seems awfully clean for Chicago politics. What's the rub?
ReplyDeleteI guess not everything is fixable. Or else it was fixed by somebody else! We'll see what the state supreme court rules.
ReplyDelete