State Supreme Court gives Emanuel a reprievehttp://http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/elections/ct-met-chicago-mayor-race-0126-20110125,0,458643.storyJustices order his name on the ballot for now, agree to expedited reviewBy Jeff Coen, Annie Sweeney and Hal Dardick, Tribune reporters
8:55 p.m. CST, January 25, 2011
The Illinois Supreme Court granted a reprieve to Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday, keeping his name on the Chicago mayoral ballot temporarily as justices hurry to decide whether it should remain there permanently.
About 300,000 ballots without Emanuel's name already had been printed when word came that the justices were stepping in, forcing city election officials to call their printer with a message: "Stop the presses."
The developments capped a whirlwind 24 hours in the mayor's race that started when the Appellate Court issued the stunning decision Monday booting Emanuel from the ballot. The ruling sent Emanuel's legal team scrambling to save his candidacy for Chicago's top office as opponents rushed to pick off potential supporters.
Team Emanuel won a round Tuesday as the state's high court chose to intervene by ordering that his name must appear on ballots printed for the Feb. 22 election and agreeing to take up the case challenging Emanuel's residency.
Now Emanuel's mayoral bid rests squarely in the hands of seven justices who will deliver what is widely expected to be the final word on whether Emanuel meets the statutory requirement that candidates for office in a municipality live there for one year prior to an election. The battle over whether Emanuel disqualified himself by going to Washington to serve as President Barack Obama's White House chief of staff has traveled from a chaotic election hearing in the basement of a downtown building to the highest court in the state in a little more than a month.
At a news conference before the state Supreme Court action, Emanuel said he is "confident in the argument we are making" in the appeal.
"I believe (voters) deserve the right to make that choice, to say yes or no, and nobody else," Emanuel said. "In the end, we will be on the ballot and people will have that option to vote."
Legal experts said the state Supreme Court seems to be signaling it will come to a conclusion fairly quickly. The justices don't want to hear arguments or receive new legal briefings from the attorneys on either side of the ballot dispute. Instead, they'll use the material the attorneys already filed at the appellate level.
Experienced appellate lawyers said the court appears to be sending a message that it's not confused by the residency issue, can deal with the Appellate Court's ruling itself and may even have an ultimate direction in mind.
Steve Merican, an attorney who has done appellate work for 20 years, said generally that an expedited review could mean the justices will give an answer in anywhere from 12 hours to a few days, though it's impossible to know for sure. Early voting in the city is set to begin Monday.
"You never know how they're going to rule," Merican said. "But the fact that they took it clearly is a positive for Emanuel.''
The court has any number of options on how to deal with the controversy.
There's a remote chance the court could essentially punt on the questions of law and restore Emanuel to the ballot by saying the Appellate Court had overstepped its bounds by wading into the territory reserved for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners and the circuit court, the appellate attorneys said. Emanuel was successful at those levels.
But most said it is much more likely the court intends to reach back into the meat of the matter and make what would amount to a landmark ruling on the issue. There's no guarantee Emanuel would prevail if that's the case.
"Underneath this all is probably the worry in the (Emanuel) camp that the court could affirm, with a holding that they are just following the law, and they can only deal with what the Legislature enacted, not what the Legislature intended to enact,'' said Mike Rathsack, a fellow at the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers.
In their appeal to the state Supreme Court, Emanuel's lawyers focused on the idea that the 2-1 majority of the Appellate Court panel that knocked him off the ballot had almost arbitrarily decided that Emanuel didn't meet the residency requirement.
By stating that candidates must be physically present to comply with the residency rule and by failing to say who under state law should get an exemption for government service, the Appellate Court had essentially blocked someone like Obama from returning to Chicago and running for office, Emanuel's team argued.
"Illinois has proudly provided the federal government with some of the most talented public servants in our nation's history," the Emanuel filing states. "These public servants include two presidents (Obama and Abraham Lincoln), who under the Appellate Court's decision could not return to Illinois following their presidencies and continue their public service as elected officials."
Emanuel's lawyers cited six "fundamental reasons" the lower court decision should be reversed, ranging from claiming that the appellate ruling is "squarely inconsistent" with prior state Supreme Court decisions on residency to saying it created too much uncertainty for all candidates going forward.
The objectors to Emanuel's candidacy have called for a practical interpretation of what it means to "reside in" a place for a year before an election. Put simply, Emanuel was living in Washington while serving in the Obama administration and shouldn't be eligible to run, they have said.
Merican said that, as he sees it, Emanuel's lawyers "have the tougher row to hoe" as they try to make the nuanced argument that Emanuel was a resident of Chicago even though he clearly physically lived in Washington.
"It's not an easy question," Merican said. "The majority (appellate) opinion and the dissent both contained good rationale and good legal reasoning. It's not as if it's a slam dunk for either side."
And now both sides must essentially live with the arguments they've already made, having no new opportunity to convince the high court their side is right.
As for city election officials, they restarted the printing of ballots by Tuesday afternoon, this time with Emanuel's name back on them, said Langdon Neal, elections board chairman.
The ballots without Emanuel's name had yet to be dried, cut, separated and shrink-wrapped, and they will now be locked away. And there they'll stay, Neal said, unless of course they're needed after all.
Tribune reporters Kristen Mack and Dawn Rhodes contributed.
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