Residency Questions Still Plague Emanuel
CHICAGO (CBS) - Residency questions continue to plague high-profile mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel.
But election officials allowed Emanuel to vote by absentee ballot.
Kass quotes election attorney Burton Odelson as calling the reinstatement of Emanuel's voting status "mysterious." Odelson tells Kass that it is "easy" to prove that Emanuel did not live in Chicago, since he admitted he and his family lived in Washington, D.C., and his children went to school there.
Kass reports that Odelson's documents show election notices were sent twice to Emanuel's house on Hermitage Avenue in the Ravenswood neighborhood, but they were both returned to sender and stamped with a Washington forwarding address.
Emanuel was purged from the voting rolls and deemed "inactive" in October 2009, but was restored to "active" status so he could vote in the Feb. 2 primary with an absentee ballot, Kass reported.
Emanuel was again rendered inactive in May, but re-registered with an address on Milwaukee Avenue last month, Kass reported.
Current state law requires anyone running for elected municipal office to reside in the city or town in which they are running at least one year prior to the election.
Kass went so far as to proclaim that the residency issues may "derail" Emanuel's mayoral ambitions.
Businessman Rob Halpin and his family are renting the Emanuels' house. In September, Emanuel reportedly asked Halpin and his wife to move out of the house so the Emanuel family could move back in.
The couple said no. They extended their lease until next year just days before Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he wouldn't seek re-election and told Emanuel they don't want to leave, an Emanuel spokesman said at the time.
A past Kass column said some local Republican leaders had even asked Halpin to consider running for mayor against Emanuel.
But as for the residency issue, the city's Board of Elections said in September that Emanuel's residency was not in question.
"If you are a registered voter and continue to vote from your residence, you establish what we consider the intent to be a resident of the city of Chicago," Chicago Election Board Chairman Langdon Neal said in September.
Meanwhile, a recent poll indicated that many voters might not care.
A poll of members of the Teamsters Union showed overwhelming support for Emanuel over all the other candidates. The poll also showed that voters know about doubts regarding Emanuel's residency, but that most poll participants believed he should be allowed to run anyway.
"In fact, Emanuel's lead is actually slightly greater among voters who are aware of the residency issues than among those who are not aware," the poll results said.
