{"id":8044,"date":"2010-12-16T23:52:33","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T04:52:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=8044"},"modified":"2010-12-16T23:52:33","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T04:52:33","slug":"rahm-emanuel%e2%80%99s-residency-problem-poses-a-serious-question-about-the-rule-of-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/8044\/rahm-emanuel%e2%80%99s-residency-problem-poses-a-serious-question-about-the-rule-of-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Rahm Emanuel\u2019s Residency Problem Poses a Serious Question About the Rule of Law"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s one of the ironies of modern judicial interpretation that textbooks and master theses masquerading as court opinions go to great lengths to unearth vague notions of \u2018legislative intent\u2019 in arcane statutes, but brush aside the plain meaning of rules like residency requirements to run for public office.\u00a0 Which poses the question: do all the laws matter except those that apply to candidates\u00a0 running for office?<\/p>\n<p>For example, there is <a href=\"http:\/\/abclocal.go.com\/wls\/story?section=news\/local&amp;id=7656949\" target=\"_blank\">precious little required<\/a> to run for Mayor of Chicago.\u00a0 A candidate must be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>18 years old<\/li>\n<li>A registered voter<\/li>\n<li>A resident of the city of Chicago<\/li>\n<li>Without any debt, unpaid tax, lien or other obligation to the city of Chicago<\/li>\n<li>Without a felony conviction or conviction for any infamous crime, bribery or perjury<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Candidates must also produce a minimum of 12,500 signatures and file at the Board of Election Commissioners between November 15 and November 22, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Note that a candidate doesn\u2019t have to be married, literate, employed, able to speak English, or competent to read a budget.\u00a0 One presumes that the reasons for the requirements that are listed is to ensure that a person running to become the most powerful local official: 1) has reached the legal age to contract, 2) demonstrates a current political stake in the community, 3) isn\u2019t running to dodge a public debt, and 4) hasn\u2019t been convicted of criminal dishonesty.<\/p>\n<p>If a candidate for mayor cannot meet these slight \u2013 but important \u2013 criteria, he doesn\u2019t deserve to run.\u00a0 Everyone knows that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nbcchicago.com\/blogs\/ward-room\/rahm-emanuel-residency-hearing-111960544.html?dr\" target=\"_blank\">Rahm Emanuel has not been a resident<\/a> of the city of Chicago for the last year because he was living in Washington, D.C. with his family while working at the White House.\u00a0 If the requirement is to have any validity, Emanuel shouldn\u2019t be allowed to run for mayor until he reestablishes his residency.\u00a0 The rule of law and common sense demand it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s one of the ironies of modern judicial interpretation that textbooks and master theses masquerading as court opinions go to great lengths to unearth vague notions of \u2018legislative intent\u2019 in arcane statutes, but brush aside the plain meaning of rules like residency requirements to run for public office.\u00a0 Which poses the question: do all the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,2026,2184,181],"class_list":["post-8044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-chicago","tag-election","tag-judicial-interpretation","tag-rahm-emanuel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8044"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8048,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8044\/revisions\/8048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}