Rahm Emanuel’s residency fight just took a turn for the worse. The Illinois Appellate Court ruled 2-1 to overturn a Chicago Board of Elections decision to allow Rahm Emanuel on the mayoral ballot. Rahm’s Attorney Kevin Forde says “its a surprise.”
I honestly can’t think of a political issue I care about less than whether Rahm becomes mayor of Chicago, which makes sense, because I DON’T LIVE THERE. However, the twitterverse is abuzz.
Zifnab
I hope, for their sakes, they don’t use Rahm’s gym locker room.
Steve
This surprises me. The courts generally lean in favor of ballot access, and the arguments against Rahm never impressed me as particularly strong, but whatever. There is, of course, at least one more rung in the court system that he can climb.
fasteddie9318
Well, looks like somebody wasn’t paid up with the right judges. Or was, depending on your point of view. Hard to tell with Chicago politics.
Alex S.
I have a feeling that Carol Moseley Brown would not be a good mayor.
KG
so, um, good news for John McCain?
Annelid Gustator
Well there’s his mistake: he should have attempted to get on the mayoral ballet.
Don
Save the seat next to you on the Who Gives A Shit bus for me.
I do think residency requirements and term limits are a big waste of everyone’s time. If those things are important to voters they have an excellent remedy: the election.
Allan
Just as it was ill-advised of Rahm to quit his day job without nailing down all the loose ends first, it was also ill-advised for a blogger to visit a military base without doing likewise.
That’s all I’m saying.
cleek
the world keeps confirming to me that not taking up Twitter continues to be the right decision.
TooManyJens
My only investment in this is that I want to be able to keep following @MayorEmanuel on Twitter. That shit’s hilarious.
Mattminus
Rahm (the Spaceknight) Emanuel is racist against retards just like Jane Hamsher, and should be held without trial at Quantico Bay and subjected to a Living Tribunal.
JGabriel
John Cole:
Ditto. If possible, I probably care even less than you. More likely, we’re tied in our utter lack of Chicago Mayoralty caringness.
.
Just Some Fuckhead
I think it’s funny as hell. Maybe he can run for mayor of Jerusalem if the Chicago thing doesn’t work out.
El Cid
Awesome! Another hugely significant discussion of progressives who go over the top getting mad about Rahm!
fasteddie9318
Regardless of the specific person involved, it strikes me as legally indefensible to deny residency to somebody because they’ve been working in the federal government. What’s next, denying residency to overseas military?
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
Chicagoan here…I was/am going to vote for Rahm. Hopefully this gets straightened out.
JasonK
I don’t know how they could overrule this. It’s ridiculous. The guy was a Rep. here obviously prior to becoming Chief of Staff. As he was leasing his property he would still be listed as owner of the property. This is bullshit.
cyntax
The @MayorEmanuel feed is the next best thing to the spoof Christopher Walken feed:
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
Honestly, I think this is a weird decision. Residency is largely a technical classification (where you file taxes, how long you’ve resided there, etc) rather than a de facto one. Plus, the obvious intention of the residency requirement is to prevent carpetbagging. But none of these would apply to Rahm; the guy’s been a congressperson representing Chicago until recently, has ties there, he still owns property there, has always suggested he’d return–so I can’t think of any reason to apply residency requirements in such a stringent way short of political gamesmanship.
lacp
I’m really, really trying to care about this. OK, that’s a lie – I don’t give a shit.
suzanne
@cleek: Word to that.
I started a Twitter account over a year ago. I’ve never tweeted? twit? twat? twatted? since. And I don’t even read the tweets? twits? twats? of the people I supposedly follow.
Though, I’ll admit, I have to remind myself not to share gynecological information in my Facebook status updates.
Violet
Why would Rahm’s mayoral race affect anyone who doesn’t live in Chicago? I can’t imagine anything I care about less.
Progressives who are full of glee about this should be careful what they wish for. He might run for something else and they’ll be longing for the days when he was only able to ruin Chicago.
cathyx
I guess he’ll just have to go on unemployment then.
Culture of Truth
The twitter feed was hilarious. Made the game much more entertaining.
Alex S.
Emanuel should have run against Mark Kirk… now he’ll have to wait 6 years. Maybe he runs for his old seat in the House.
jerry 101
I live in Chicago, and am very directly affected by this.
It’s not over yet – It’s fairly widely known that the residency challenges were going to be decided by the Illinois State Supreme Court, so this is just on it’s way up to the top. The State Supremes are the ones who matter.
Unfortunately, my gut feeling is that he’ll win the residency ruling, and the mayor’s race. The other candidates running for Mayor aren’t that great – The Powers That Be convinced all the best non-Rahm candidates to stay out of the race (David Hoffman, Alexi Giannoulias, a few of the better aldermen). This race is supposed to be handed to Rahm on a silver platter by Daley.
If Rahmn actually gets kicked off the ballot, the race will probably come down to Carol Mosely Braun versus Gery Chico in a run-off.
While I’m a bit partial to Ms. Braun, she’s run a hellishly bad race, so I’m leaning Chico.
BGinCHI
I’m amazed at how little anyone I know is talking about this. I’m not a local political (machine) junky, but people aren’t nervous or even outwardly fascinated by the mayoral race.
Others in Chi want to say what’s going on around them?
And if you don’t live here I could see why you wouldn’t care. But where you live prolly has a better quarterback so what do you gotta worry about?
BGinCHI
@Violet: You’ll be entertained though when he changes the city motto to “What the fuck are you looking at, retard?”
Or does Staten Island already have that?
Sly
On rare occassions, Twitter provides a useful service.
General Stuck
Now that Rahm has become a victim of The Man, it might just make him progressive sponge worthy. You just never know which way the worm turns with that crew.
Violet
@BGinCHI:
I’d be really amused if he did something like that.
That twitter feed is hilarious. Good stuff.
WyldPirate
@BGinCHI:
Easy to say while you’re sitting at home on YOUR couch watching the game.
And leave Jay Cutler alooooonnnne! Also, too.
Phil Perspective
@jerry 101: It’s the fact that we can have a laugh at Rahm’s expense for a day or two. That’s what. In fact, most people having that laugh probably figure that the ruling will be overturned(Wouldn’t that be something if it isn’t?). Not to mention the satircal Twitter feed someone mentioned above.
stuckinred
@BGinCHI: Buncha ferries
BGinCHI
@WyldPirate: I didn’t like him before the game.
And just for the record, I rooted for the Pack. I just can’t get behind the Bears right now. They give me a bad vibe.
Joseph Nobles
The dissent reads well. The appellate court may yet be overturned.
OT: Erick Fucking Bloody Erickson is holding out hope that “massive bloodshed” won’t be necessary over Roe v. Wade, but he’s down with it if that’s what it takes.
David in NY
@suzanne:
Re past tense of “to twitter”: “twatted?”
I’m down with that (so to speak). Maybe if we call it “twatted” we can end the whole thing.
John PM
I just read the opinion and it is bad. The Appellate Court said that Rahm cannot run for mayor, but he can still vote, even though the residency requirements appear the same for both voters and candidates.
John, I can understand why you are not concerned since you live in West Virginia (State Motto: We like blowing the tops off of our mountains), but this ruling, were it to stand, would affect all municipal offices in Illinois, not just those in Chicago. I think that the dissent has the better argument and that the opinion will be overturned. The main problem is that there is not a lot of time before absentee ballots are sent out. The other problem with this decision is that this could lead to Mayor Carol Mosley-Braun, which would be horrendous.
Joey Maloney
@David in NY: No such luck. Twatter: the anti-social network.
rikyrah
I find it hilarious.
as a Chicagoan, I would chew ground glass before I’d ever vote for Rahm.
srv
Yeah, John, we know, you didn’t care when Rahm and Daley’s were the go to guys on NAFTA and all those other wonderful “free trade” agreements. Just uninteresting these folks history. People who loathe them are just deranged.
And no problem Emanuel and the Daley brothers working out a swap like that. We can already see the results: prop the president up there and blather about “competitiveness” while you let GE trade avionics/engine tech with China for Boeing selling some planes. GE will open an partnership with China in a few years, and not long after that the engine on your plane will say “Made in China” and your domestic plants will shut down.
Heard that record before?
How many jobs do democrats have to give away for short-term gains before you find a clue?
PeakVT
One less influence-peddling ex-investment banker in political office is a good thing in my book, so I hope the ruling is upheld.
Mnemosyne
@fasteddie9318:
That’s what I was thinking, too. Is a court going to decide that someone serving in the Army in Germany can’t vote in US elections because they’re not physically present in the US? Or, heck, even someone serving within the US who has residency in another state?
This would seem to open up a whole can of worms that I doubt any court is going to want to dig through.
(I have family in the Chicagoland area but not in the city itself).
Ash Can
The scuttlebutt I’ve heard is that Rahm doesn’t get along very well with the various labor unions around Chicago, which could hurt him at the polls (if he ends up staying on the ballot, which I’m betting will happen given the findings by the lower court and the Board of Elections). There are loads of city workers where I live, but I get a skewed view from them since they’re averse to anyone who might eliminate their jobs in cost-cutting/cleanup measures, regardless of how much overall good those measures would do the city. In my own personal view, we could do worse than to have Rahm as mayor, if for no other reason than the fact his DC connections would likely come in handy. But he’s no Cory Booker. Then again, none of the candidates are. Carol Mosley Braun had some fairly serious and well-publicized judgment issues when she was a US senator, so I’m not planning on voting for her. As for the other guys, I’m not at all confident they can juggle all the different political factions in the city. I don’t know that much about them, though, so I may change my tune over the coming days and weeks. But I kind of doubt it.
David in NY
@Joey Maloney: Well, thanks for the information, I think.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
And that explains your obsession with a local election in a city you don’t live in why, again? I’m pretty sure the city of Chicago isn’t going to be able to enact its own NAFTA agreement.
If anything, you should be thrilled that Emanuel is getting out of national politics and will only be able to screw up a single city instead of the whole country.
chopper
maybe mayor rahm will buy the parking meters back.
shoestring potato
Absentee ballots are already out.
My friend got hers in the mail last week
fasteddie9318
@Mnemosyne:
Daley left him with a city that can’t be unscrewed, so he won’t even have a chance to screw that up, really.
srv
@Mnemosyne: Yeah, I should be thrilled the Daley brothers trade NAFTA Rahm for NAFTA Bill to be CoS and a play for a future national spot with which to fuck America even more.
Eric S.
@shoestring potato: Early voting starts next Monday. It would seem the ILL Supreme Court will have to rule quickly.
As a Chicagoan I am paying attention. In response to BG who asks how people around me are watching it varies. A couple of us political junkies are paying attention. Most of us assume Rahm has/had it in the bag. Most people I know are not paying attention or at least not talking about it. I figure that’s related to two things. First, the assumption that Rahm is the anointed successor. Second, everyone is burned out from the midterm elections. For the record, the scheduling of the Chicago elections in February is a feature not a bug. The Machine wants people disengaged.
debbie
@cyntax:
I loved that Walken feed and am saddened to learn it wasn’t real. I must say, I saw his last SNL appearance and was disappointed that he wasn’t as quirky as his Twitter posts. Now I know why.
msskwesq
He will appeal and win, in my opinion. AND the people of Chicago should hope he wins his appeal as the remaining candidates are really not qualified to be the mayor of Chicago. Chicago is really a complex city and it will take someone who can handle all that complexity. Rham, although I wasn’t a fan of his at the White House, I think has the backbone and the smarts to handle the city’s business. Carol Mosley Braun is far far from qualified – she has tax issues and financial problems. She was connected to some ethical issues when she was the Senator. The rest of the slate are just not qualified, period.
cyntax
@debbie:
Yeah, it was a little too good to be true, but fun while it lasted.
And while I have no opinion on the whole Rahm thing, this struck me as pretty funny:
That Halpin once ran for mayor really brings it all together.
jsfox
Just when you think Rahm Derangement Syndrome has finally dissipated along come the Courts to crank it up again.
Tim
YAY. My feeling has long been that Rahm E is a complete douche when it comes to public service, and his performance in the O administration, not to overlook is apparent off the charts arrogance, so I welcome any development that brings him angst.
Especially as it regards his attempt to carpet bag his way to Chicago mayordom.
That said, he is exceedingly hot, if small, and I would like to have sex with him.
BGinCHI
@Eric S.: This sounds exactly right to me. +1.
BGinCHI
It’s pretty lengthy, but this ought to be a tag.
hilts
Somewhere, Eric Massa is smiling. Hopefully, Emanuel has learned his lesson and will never again confront someone outside of a shower stall while he’s naked as a jaybird.
Cain
Looks like a shower with the judge is in order.
cain
Pat
So where does he live???????????????????
Valdivia
Have to second Tim on the hot but small and wanting to have sex with Rahm bit.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
Still not seeing what your obsession with the mayoral race in Chicago has to do with NAFTA, unless you think that Chicago and St. Louis are about to enter into some kind of similar agreement. Is your argument that Bill Daley should have stayed there and run for mayor himself?
Shinobi
I saw Rahm glad handing on the red line the other day. I didn’t recognize him at first, I was like, who is this extremely short guy in the Patagonia fleece and pin stripes smiling at people, is he going to ask me for money? Or perhaps ask me to accept Jesus Christ as mys savior?
Everyone sort of avoided him, and I only realized who he was as I passed. He really should invest in some buttons or something more conspicuous than himself and a guy in a trench fiddling with his blackberry. Does he not KNOW how many crazy people there are on any given red line platform?
(I live in Evanston and work in Chicago, I will be affected a great deal by the mayoral race, but I have no say in it. But then I don’t have to hear my neighbors having sex, so… trade-offs.)
cynickal
As a progressive, my first thought on reading about Rahm was, “I bet John Cole is still an asshole.”
Bloix
The opinion is idiotic. The statute at issue has a specific provision that the residency requirement doesn’t apply if you’re out of state “on United States business.” The court admits that the provision applies to the part of the statute that requires residency for voting, and then ties itself in a knot to get to the conclusion that it doesn’t apply to the part of the statute that applies to running for office. It’s a completely result-oriented decision and it’s utterly unconvincing.