Hundreds of thousands of Chicagoans are expected at the polls in less than a month to choose our next mayor. But three people have already declared who it won’t be. Those Appellate Court Justices have overruled the election board’s consent to Rahm Emanuel’s candidacy. Whether you approve of him or not is suddenly irrelevant. We have each, to varying degree, been disenfranchised. In the broader scope, we are all denied the results of a fair election.
If you bother to read the opinion you may conclude that it was largely based on semantics; isolating phrases like “resident of” from “reside in” as they apply separately to either voters or candidates. This ambiguity when strictly interpreted, as Appellate Courts are mandated to do, basically creates two classes of citizens. They are those who can vote, and those we can vote for.
The ability to discriminate under such convoluted technicalities effectively removed Mr. Emanuel as a resident of the city he claimed as home, swore he never intended to depart, and demonstrated a passion to serve. A review of Article Four of the Constitution raises the issue of whether he’s being deprived of equal protection under the Privileges and Immunities clause. If so, Tuesday’s decision has forfeited our founding fathers’ worthiest legacy to the connivances of vocabulary-parsing legal contestants in a sterile courtroom.
— Richard Harris, Chicago
