Did You Know...

Hoo-boy. Crook County is all shook up today following the Illinois Appellate Court’s decision to throw Rahm Emanuel off the Chicago mayoral ballot over his residency troubles:

The Illinois Appellate Court has tossed mayoral frontrunner Rahm Emanuel off the ballot, reversing the decision of a lower court. The Appellate Court reached a 2-1 decision to remove Emanuel.

Appellate judges Thomas Hoffman and Shelvin Louise Marie Hall ruled against Emanuel. Justice Bertina Lampkin voted in favor of keeping President Obama’s former chief of staff on the Feb. 22 ballot.

…A hearing officer, the full Chicago Board of Elections, and a Cook County Circuit Court judge ruled earlier that Emanuel is eligible to run for mayor.

Illinois state law says a candidate for mayor is required to have lived in the municipality where he is running for at least one year prior to the election. But exceptions are made for national service. Attorney Burton Odelson, who led the charge to get Emanuel removed, argued that “national service” would only apply to military service, not serving in the White House as Emanuel did.

But Emanuel’s legal team has argued that he always intended to return to Chicago, noting that he maintained ownership of his Ravenswood home.

In ruling in favor of Emanuel earlier this month, Cook County Circuit Court Associate Judge Mark Ballard agreed that Emanuel kept his residency in Chicago, ruling that “it didn’t matter” that he went to D.C. to work for Obama.

Emanuel had a commanding lead heading into the election less than four weeks away.

Just wondering: Will all of Rahm’s Hollywood hot shot donors and other $100,000 Club members get their money back?

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Here’s a link to the court decision (PDF).

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2:35pm Eastern. Rahm gave a short statement to the press (no profanity delay buttons were necessary today). An appeal is on the way. He brushed off suggestion that politics played a role in court decision and said: “I have no doubt in the end we will prevail.”

Then, he cackled.