Legal Commentary

IL Supreme Court Puts Rahm Back on Ballot

By Jeralyn

That didn't take long. The Illinois Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals and ruled Rahm Emanuel may run for Chicago Mayor. It wasn't even close, the Supreme Court blasted the appeals court decision:

We wish to emphasize that, until just a few days ago, the governing law on this question had been settled in this State for going on 150 years....Things changed, however, when the appellate court below issued its decision and announced that it was no longer bound by any of the law cited above....Its reasons for departing from over 100 years of settled residency law are hardly compelling and deserve only brief attention.

All of that said, and putting aside the appellate court's conclusion that Smith [settled law] is not binding in this case, the appellate court's residency analysis remains fundamentally flawed. This is because, even under traditional principles of statutory analysis, the inevitable conclusion is that the residency analysis conducted by the hearing officer, the Board, and the circuit court [those who heard Emanuel's case before the appellate court] was proper.

I am not a Rahm supporter, but the Supreme Court got it right, in my opinion.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 27, 2011 (boomark / email).