The Illinois Supreme Court has overruled the appellate court (which, after all, only cared about the law), and says that Rahm can run. Hey, it’s the Chicago way.
19 thoughts on “The Fix Is In”
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The Illinois Supreme Court has overruled the appellate court (which, after all, only cared about the law), and says that Rahm can run. Hey, it’s the Chicago way.
Comments are closed.
No big surprise.
That didn’t take long!
Laws are for the little people.
rickl:
That’s for sure. Here in the People’s Republic, when Mitt Romney was governor, they changed the law so that Mitt would NOT be able to appoint a temporary Senator to fill a newly vacant position.
But of course they changed it back so that the present Gov – Duval Patrick – could do exactly that.
I guess Illinois needs a constitutional amendment declaring Rahm an unperson. Should be more popular than a gay marriage initiative.
I thought the Chicago way was to keep people off the ballot. that’s how our fearless leader got his start, right?
In fairness, Rahm’s argument has some merit. When it comes to taxes I know that some jurisdictions consider you to still be a resident if you move away but have an intent to return. Thus a short term job assignment out of state doesn’t change your state of residence. By this standard taking a job in the administration probably doesn’t qualify as changing residence. (I’m not speaking about Illinois law here, of which I know nothing. Just saying the argument has some merit.)
just asking: rahm is so greedy he couldn’t just let his house sit vacant?
just asking: rahm is so greedy he couldn’t just let his house sit vacant?
Or just rent some cheap place for a year. It does seem to me rather sloppy on Emanuel’s part that he couldn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
Karl Hallowell Says:
January 27th, 2011 at 8:36 pm
It does seem to me rather sloppy on Emanuel’s part that he couldn’t dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
It seems pretty brazen to me. See my earlier comment. He just doesn’t give a sh*t about the law. He’ll find a way to bend it to his will. It appears he was successful in that.
How about the trouble that woman that sent her kids to the school district her parents lived in. The argument was that she wasn’t paying taxes for her children to go there when in fact as a family they were paying taxes in both districts?
She must have been one of the little people. WTF indeed.
I really don’t have a problem with it. When I was in the Mil, I was gone from Indiana for about 6 years, but I was an indiana resident. Rahm, while not in the military was performing a “public service” while in washington, and he needed to be in washington for his work. The argument about renting the house isn’t enough for me, he was gonna spend the majority of his time, performing a public task out of state for federal government, so he might as well put his property to work, while using favors and friends for his limited return to chicago.
Another military example, in 6 years I spent about 25 days in indiana, only about 10 of those days (actually less) at what was my legal residence, I was out partying with my friends, crashing at their places, socializing with them or with new met women etc, but I was still an indiana resident.
Also, as despicable of a human being as rahm might seem, he’s actually the best candidate for chicago. I don’t know if that’s strange fortune, or a blatant demonstration of how screwed that city is.
As much as I hate to say this, if he paid taxes, and didn’t change his residence to VA or MD and didn’t vote in the east, he’s an IL resident.
Like Douglas said, there is long standing history here. The military / federal service thing is the obvious example. My son has been gone for 17 years, but he votes and pays taxes here. I know people who were in the Peace Corps, same thing there for residency.
I think paying taxes shows intent of remaining a citizen. And let me state openly, I feel for those people in Chicago, the guy is a loony, commie, snake, @$$hole. (IMHO)
It’s hard for me to care about Chicago – it’s in another state and what people do there isn’t any of my business.
But hey – bad doings in Chicago make Wisconsin a more attractive place for refugees: give us your tired, your poor …
The funny part is, HUD and FEMA would both say that, as soon as he rented his house out, it was no longer his primary residence, and as such, he would have no right to any sort of HUD or FEMA benefits if disaster befell the property.
I wonder if he paid commercial property taxes on the rental unit, and had it inspected and licensed for rental use? Wait, this is Chicago. Any inspectors or licensing agents would have been paid off long ago to look the other way…
If being called to serve the president is as important as volunteering to defend one’s country with one’s own life as a member of the military, then it should also be important enough of a calling to FINISH THE JOB and THEN go back home, satisfy the residency requirements for office, and run.
Most members and former members of the military respect the rule of law and positions of authority enough to adhere to the law, rather than try to use fancy law tricks and semantics to get onto a ballot to obtain a position of authority.
As the appellate court said, residency requirements for voting aren’t the same as residency requirements to serve in office, and conflating the former into the latter doesn’t make it any more real. Obviously the cheques written to the Supreme Court cleared in time.
I understand the statement about citizenry and residency. But I do think a different standard between voter and office holder is reasonable. If an office holder is to represent something as intement as a city, they should have current and routine knowledge of that jurisdiction. A voter is protecting their own rights, and choosing to select someone that will also protect those rights. An office holder has to be personally knowledgeable to protect others’ rights.
There was a time when mayors would gain that personal knowledge by walking their own streets and talking to their own citizens and business owners. When the mayor comes in from elsewhere, the gain the knowledge by building databases that collect information impersonally and characterize people by stereotype.
At the end of the day for me, I just don’t care. Chicago citizens will decide what’s best for them. If the select Rahm; they’ll get what the deserve. And when Chicago and its state goes bankrupt; citizens in other city and states shouldn’t be compelled to bail them out. After all, I’m no resident of Chicago; was not allowed to vote there; and thus should have no responsibility for their debt.
If someone doesn’t need to be a resident in order to run for mayor then what difference does it make whether your a resident when it comes to paying their taxes?
Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you were running for mayor of the town in Indiana where you lived, and if that town had an entirely distinct and separate rule about residency applicable to mayoral candidates, your anecdote might be relevant.
Seriously, it’s as bad as chiding people for being anti-immigrant and completely overlooking the distinction between legal and illegal.
Nooooo! That’s like denying black people the right to vote, or something.