Rahm Emanueuls Chicago residency still open to dabate

Emanuels Chicago residency hearing enters 3rd day
CHICAGO (AP) — Attorneys for former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are focused on showing that he always planned to come back to Chicago after he finished working for President Barack Obama. A Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel’s mayoral bid enters its third day Thursday with more witnesses expected to testify. More than two dozen opponents say he doesn’t have a legal right to run because he lived for nearly two years in ...

Renter Testifies at Emanuel's Residency Hearing
(Chicago) — A friend of Chicago mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel's wife testified Wednesday that she helped pack away their family heirlooms and other mementos for storage before Emanuel moved to Washington to become President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. Mee Kim-Chavez spoke at a Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel's bid for the city's top job. She said she helped Emanuel's wife, Amy Rule, store 20 to 30 boxes in a crawl space under a home add...

Renter Testifies at Emanuel's Residency Hearing
(Chicago) — A friend of Chicago mayoral hopeful Rahm Emanuel's wife testified Wednesday that she helped pack away their family heirlooms and other mementos for storage before Emanuel moved to Washington to become President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. Mee Kim-Chavez spoke at a Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel's bid for the city's top job. She said she helped Emanuel's wife, Amy Rule, store 20 to 30 boxes in a crawl space under a home add...

Witness: Emanuel's renter wanted $100K to move out
CHICAGO (AP) - A hearing over residency challenges to Rahm Emanuel's mayoral bid grinded on Thursday with a witness testifying that Emanuel's tenant wanted $100,000 to move out of his Chicago house when the former White House Chief of Staff came back to run for the city's top job. Paul Levy, a friend of Emanuel's who has advised him on Real Estate matters, said he reached out to businessman Rob Halpin and his family about breaking their lease early so Emanuel could move back into his home after...

Making the Case on Rahm Emanuel's Residency
Chicago - After three days of Testimony over Income Tax records, boxes in a basement and the location of a Wedding Dress, lawyers on Thursday laid out legal arguments over whether Rahm Emanuel should appear on the ballot for Chicago mayor. The leading attorney against Mr. Emanuel’s bid, Burt Odelson, said that local case law had found that a Candidate must have a “physical presence” in Chicago for a year prior to an election. He argued that Mr. Emanuel, who worked as President Obam

Rob Halpin tried to shake Rahm down legally for $100,000
First it was reported that Rob Halpin refused to get out of Rahm Emanuel 's house when Rahm decided to leave Washington, D.C. as President Barack Obama 's Chief of Staff to concentrate on a run for mayor of Chicago after Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he was 'outta there.'  Though the law says a person may be out of the city to be a federal public servant, the trouble began for Rahm concerning elibigility to run, Naturally, Halpin's refusing to get out of Rahm's home assisted two dozen no...

Emanuel awaits board's decision on residency challenge
Deliberations have started in Rahm Emanuel's mayoral ballot challenge hearing and are expected to conclude next week.  That's when the former White House Chief of Staff will learn whether he overcame the objections to his eligibility for the Feb. 22 mayoral primary ballot.  At issue is whether Emanuel meets the one-year residency requirement to appear on the ballot. 

Emanuel's attorney, Kevin Forde, told the Chicago Board of Election officials that the former congressman always inte

At Issue in Emanuel Hearing: Boxes in Basement
Chicago — The contents of Rahm Emanuel’s basement took center stage on Wednesday in an election board hearing to determine whether he can run for mayor. A tenant who is renting Mr. Emanuel’s home here told a hearing officer that she had never seen any of the boxes Mr. Emanuel said he stored in the basement when he left for Washington to work as President Obama’s Chief of Staff. The tenant, Lori Halpin, testified during the second day of hearings over whether Mr. Emanuel meets the

Were Emanuels tenant demands for $100K related to residency case?
* The plot thickens… The Real Estate manager who helped Rahm Emanuel buy his North Side home testified in a residency hearing today that Emanuel’s renters wanted $100,000 to end their lease early when he returned to Chicago this fall to run for mayor. […] Levy said he passed the $100,000 figure to Emanuel, who called it “ridiculous.” The counter offer was $5,000 a month for every month early the Halpins left, Levy said. The lease is set to expire in mid-2011. * An...

Rahm Emanuel Residency Hearing Turns Circus-Like
Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. (Credit: AP Photo/M. Spencer Green) Ordinary Chicago citizens questioned Mayoral Candidate Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday -- but some of their questions were far from ordinary. At a daylong hearing before the Chicago Board of Elections, Emanuel answered questions on everything from the first name of the current mayor to his familiarity with the phrase, "smiling like a butcher's dog." The hearing was part of an inquiry into whether President Obama's fo...

Hearing focuses on items at Emanuel's Chicago home (AP)
Chicago – The second day of a hearing into whether Rahm Emanuel has the legal right to run for Chicago mayor focused Wednesday on the family items he says were left behind in his basement when he went to Washington to become President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. The woman renting Emanuel's house testified at the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing that she had not seen treasured items Emanuel said were left in the basement. But Mee Kim-Chavez, a friend of Emanuel's wife, A...

What's in Emanuel's basement?
The fight over Rahm Emanuel's eligibility to run for mayor turned into a debate Wednesday over what's in the basement of his Chicago home. On day two of a rambling hearing into claims that Emanuel doesn't meet the one-year residency rule for Candidates, Testimony focused on his contention that his family left prized possessions stored in their North Side house when they went to Washington for his job as President Barack Obama's Chief of Staff. Emanuel's attorneys argue that that shows he intend...

Sen. Kirk says Emanuel heading to runoff if poll numbers 'hold'
Illinois Sen. Mark Kirk (R) predicted Rahm Emanuel would come out on top in the Chicago mayoral primary — if he manages to stay on the ballot. Emanuel and his camp are in the fourth day of a Chicago Board of Elections hearing into the challenges to his ballot eligibility. The primary, set for Feb. 22, is a non-partisan contest where the top two vote getters advance to a runoff in November. There are almost two-dozen Candidates, including Emanuel, vying to succeed retiring Mayor Richard Dale...

Obama agenda: Aloha?
President Obama will delay his annual trip to his birth state of Hawaii in order to sign the tax bill. The New York Times’s Leonhardt notes that Conservatives’ political attacks against the health-care law are similar to the Conservatives’ (unsuccessful) crusades against Medicare, Social Security, and other expansions of the safety net. "Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former Chief of Staff, testified yesterday about his wife’s Wedding Dress, family China, and car...

Rahm's crawlspace: Center of the Board of Elections hearing
Day two of Rahm Emanuel ’s Board of Election’s residency hearing turned into a debate about what is and what isn’t in Emanuel’s basement.  Laurie Halpin , wife of Robert Halpin who momentarily ran for Chicago mayor and temporarily refuses to move out of Emanuel’s House which he has been leasing on Hermitage Avenue, challenged Testimony given the day before by Emanuel.  On Tuesday, Emanuel spoke of family treasures being stored in the basement of which Lau...

Rahmstoppers Face Off With Rahm at Hearing
By Dionne Searcey Having spent our formative years of adulthood in Chicago, we at the Law Blog figure we could come up with a list of questions that would settle in a jiffy the kerfuffle over Rahm Emanuel’s residency that is playing out in a hearing there. Hearing officer: Mr. Emanuel, where can you find the best Cheeseburger, best cheese fries, best record store, best band and best tall downtown building to sneak onto the roof of and watch the ice floats along the Chicago River? If he can’t an..

Rahm Emanuel's Residency Hearing: Day Three To Focus On Plan To Return From Washington
Chicago — Attorneys for former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel are focused on showing that he always planned to come back to Chicago after he finished working for President Barack Obama. A Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing on residency challenges to Emanuel's mayoral bid enters its third day Thursday with more witnesses expected to testify. More than two dozen opponents say he doesn't have a legal right to run because he lived for nearly two years in Washington. Wed...

Chicago hearing: Does Rahm Emanuel qualify to run for mayor?
Rahm Emanuel faced questions Tuesday on whether he has been a Chicago resident - a requirement for a mayoral run. Mr. Emanuel served as White House Chief of Staff until October....

Rahmshtupper
Washington Times The Chicago Way is under way…again. This week, a Chicago Mayoral Candidate and opponent of Rahm Emanuel, a successful businessman named Tom Hanson, was removed from the ballot. Why? Because the City of Chicago lost his Statement of Economic Interest. According to Hanson, who previously ran against Rahm Emanuel for Congress, he even has the Chicago Board of Elections’ receipt of filing. Regardless, a hearing on Monday determined that he cannot be reinstated. (Are you laughi...

Victor, Meet Spoils: Weaponeers Peddle Wares to Iraqi Cops
Next year’s supposed to be the big year in Iraq: the final departure of U.S. Troops. But the Iraqi Ministry of Interior wants you to know that it’s got a lot of business opportunities available long after that for the enterprising defense corporation. Come by the Crown Plaza Hotel near National Airport just outside of Washington D.C. on March 3rd and 4th, because that’s when the Iraq Homeland and Border Control Conference will kick off. Sponsored by a business-expo firm calle...

Chicago magazine - A Look at Joseph Morris, the Hearing Officer in the Rahm Emanuel Residency Challenge
Joseph Morris Rahm Emanuel took the stand this morning in a hearing to determine whether he meets the residency requirements to run for mayor, given that he has been living in D.C. for the last two years. The hearings, held at the Loop offices of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, have been something of a spectacle, with crowds of objectors swarming the tiny basement conference room, shouting “indict Rahm”—or worse. Presiding over the three-ring circus has been hearin...

Is the Election Board ignoring possible fraud in Treasurer's race?
In a not so distant future, archaeologists will find the ruins of the once great metropolis of Chicago and based on media they will find, might come to the false assumption that in 2011, only a race for mayor was held here. Although we are still in the early stages of this election cycle, for the most part, the aldermanic races have been ignored by the media as have been the ones for Clerk and Treasurer. And if a Daley appointee has her way, she’d very much like to keep it that way. Unlike...

Emanuel Takes Questions About Eligibility to Run for Chicago Mayor
CHICAGO — Rahm Emanuel’s campaign to become mayor of this city has looked like a perfectly orchestrated political play: cheerful morning hand-shakings at train stops, tours of neighborhoods as cameras whir, pronouncements on education, energy, the police. Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday at an election board hearing. Then came Tuesday. Mr. Emanuel, the former White House Chief of Staff and a Veteran practitioner of campaign imagery and messaging, found himself in a packed basement meeting ...

Emanuel takes early lead in race for Chicago mayor
Former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is off to an early lead in the race for Chicago mayor, but there is plenty of room for other contenders in the crowded field as the fluid contest takes shape, a new Tribune/WGN poll found. Emanuel had the support of 32 percent of voters, just ahead of 30 percent who were undecided, making him the only candidate in double-digits with more than two months before the Feb. 22 city election. He was well short of the outright majority needed to avoid an ...

Rahm keeps his cool, wins the day and probably the mayors race
Rahm Emanuel sat for nearly 12 hours on Tuesday, fielding absurd questions from characters out of a farce, charitably, or an insane asylum, more accurately. He never lost his temper or uttered a single Profanity. He showed impressive patience with citizen objectors who droned on about wacko Conspiracy theories and asked such questions as, “Have you ever heard the term, ‘Smiling like a butcher’s dog?’ ” The TV cameras, the print reporters monitoring this hearing — the que