I'm sort of chortling about Rahm Emanuel being thrown off the ballot. I'm not a big fan.
However, it seems unfair to me. The guy was serving his country, for goodness sakes. Public service should count just as much as military service does. Suppose a candidate for mayor of Chicago were just coming off a tour of duty in Afghanistan. Would she or he be thrown off the ballot? Other candidates might would not dare to do that to a soldier. Why isn't serving your country as a public servant worth anything? That's kind of troubling.
Then there's this:
An attorney for two voters objecting to Emanuel's candidacy argued again last week that the Democrat doesn't meet the one-year residency requirement because he rented out his Chicago home and moved his family to Washington to work for President Barack Obama for nearly two years.
"If the house had not been abandoned by the whole family ... we wouldn't be here today," attorney Burt Odelson told the panel of judges, all three Democrats.
So he's additionally punished for trying to keep his family together?
I don't particularly admire Emanuel. I don't think saying "fuck" a lot is funny or charming. I think it's grotesque that he went off and made $18 million in 18 months. I think his contempt for those to his left is itself kind of contemptible. But he was responding to a call of service from a duly and legitimately elected president of the United States. And before that, he was serving the people of Chicago, or at least the people of his district, in Congress.
Let the voters decide whether he's a bona fide Chicagoan. I suspect this is what the Illinois Supreme Court will say. Strict residency rules date to the era of old powerful Democratic (usually, but Republican in some locales) machines to keep insurgents and reformers off ballots. The court can strike a blow for the relaxing of these anachronisms.
