Elections

Experts: Rahm Can't Run

Law requires Chicago residency for a year.

Getting Rahm Emanuel’s mayoral campaign off the ground isn’t going to be easy: Chicago election lawyers tell the Chicago Sun-Times’ Lynn Sweet that Emanuel is not eligible to run for mayor. Illinois’ municipal code holds that a candidate must live in the town in which he’s running for a year before the election. Rahm’s problem is that he rented out his house while he lived in Washington; he therefore cannot argue that he kept a home in Chicago. To counter, Rahm will be able to argue that he owns the home, voted absentee in Illinois, pays property taxes, lists his Illinois address on his driver’s license, registered his car there, and always intended to return.