Rahm Emanuel Must Appear on Mayoral Ballots -- For Now, Court Rules

Jan. 25, 2011— -- The Illinois Supreme Court today granted an emergency request by former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel to stop the city board of elections from printing ballots without his name.

A state appellate court ruled Monday that Emanuel has not been a legal resident of the city for at least one year, and therefore does not qualify as a candidate for the ballot.

The Board had been poised to begin printing the ballots in the next few days. Election Day is Feb. 22 and early voting is set to begin Jan. 31. The order makes clear that any ballots printed while Emanuel's appeal to the Supreme Court is pending must include his name.

In a separate action, the Court said it would examine Emanuel's appeal on an expedited basis, relying only on briefs filed in the appeals court and not hear new oral arguments.

"I have no doubt that, in the end, that we will prevail in this effort," Emanuel, the frontrunner in the race, said of the appeal.

The appellate court's surprise 2-to-1 decision blocking his candidacy reversed earlier rulings by a Cook County judge and the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners that had cleared the way for Emanuel's bid.

The appeals court ruling distilled the debate over Emanuel's residency into two questions: whether Emanuel had "resided in the municipality" for at least one year as mandated by city code, and if not, whether he qualified for an exemption.

On the first issue, Judge Thomas Hoffman ruled that Emanuel did not fulfill residency requirements as intended by law.

"Reside generally means, among other things, 'to dwell permanently or continuously,' or to 'have a settled abode for a time,'" wrote Hoffman in the majority opinion. "We believe ... that the phrase 'resided in' as used in the Municipal Code requires actual, not constructive, residence."

Municipal code provides an exemption to the residency requirement for an "elector or spouse" who has left the precinct or district on "business of the United States or of this state."

But Hoffman ruled that that provision only applied to voters, not candidates for public office. "We agree ... that this exception applies to him," he wrote. "We disagree, however, with his position that the exception saves his candidacy. In our view, the exception ... applies only to voter residency requirements, not to candidate residency requirements."

From January 2009 through October 2010, Emanuel physically resided in Washington, D.C., where he worked daily at the White House.