WASHINGTON — An Illinois appellate court ruled Monday that former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is ineligible to run for Chicago mayor because he does not meet the residency requirements of the office.
By a 2-1 vote, the panel decided Emanuel should not appear on the Feb. 22 ballot, a stunning blow to the one-time Chicago-area congressman who emerged as a clear favorite to replace retiring Mayor Richard Daley.
Sources close to Emanuel confirmed that he will appeal the ruling with the Illinois Supreme Court. Four of the seven state justices must agree to hear the case for it to proceed.
“I have no doubt at the end, we’ll prevail in this effort,” Emanuel said at a news conference Monday afternoon in Chicago. “We’ll now go to the next level to get clarity.”
Rick Hasen, an election-law expert at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said the dissenting judge gave Emanuel grounds for an appeal.
“I expect an appeal . . ., especially when the dissenting judge says that the majority opinion is based not on established law but the ‘whims’ of two judges,” Hasen said.
One Democratic source pointed to a recent poll conducted for a local Teamsters union that showed more than six in 10 Chicago voters believe that the candidate meets the residency requirement. Expect Emanuel and his legal team to make the “the people are on our side” case in the coming days.
Emanuel weathered several challenges to his residency earlier in the campaign.
At issue is whether Emanuel has been a resident of Chicago continuously for the past year. His lawyers have maintained that Emanuel never abandoned his residency even when he served as President Barack Obama’s chief of staff. It’s an argument that the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners — among others — accepted in ruling that Emanuel was eligible for the ballot.
