Rahm Emanuel meets the residency requirement to run for mayor of Chicago and will remain on the Feb. 22 primary ballot, a Cook County judge ruled Tuesday.
Cook County Circuit Judge Mark Ballard upheld an earlier 3-0 ruling by the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners that Emanuel, despite having lived in Washington, D.C., for the past two years to serve as President Obama’s chief of staff, is eligible to run.
Ballard said Emanuel's job "as service in the Executive Office of the President satisifies the statutory requirement" and "there was sufficient evidence to support ... candidate's residency."
Attorney Burt Odelson, the attorney seeking to oust Emanuel from the ballot, said he will immediately appeal his decision to the State Appellate Court. And the losing party there will likely take the case to the state Supreme Court.
The arguments were the same they have been all along in the case. Odelson argued that because Emanuel couldn’t sleep in his own bed, he ran afoul of the state municipal code that requires candidates for mayor to reside in the town they run in for a year prior to Election Day.
Odelson quoted President Obama on his first trip back to Chicago saying, "It’s good to be back home and to be able to sleep in my own bed.” Odelson added, “Mr. Emanuel couldn’t say that because Mr Halpin (the tenant) was sleeping in his bed."
Emanuel's attorneys, Mike Kasper and Kevin Forde, said Emanuel never abandoned his residence when he accepted to call to "government service" to be Obama’s chief of staff.
Forde said it would be "an absurdity" to throw Emanuel off the ballot while Odelson himself said President Obama and senior advisor David Axelrod should be allowed to run for mayor because they did not rent out their homes.
