Soxbadger

And if Indiana is a top program, so is Illinois. I just dont see what advantage Indiana has over Illinois going forward. Indiana's tradition was years ago, and furthermore they have not shown the ability to keep the top in state recruits from leaving. Conversely, Illinois was in the NCAA finals within the last 10 years and has had significant success recruiting in Chicago. If I was going to be given a Big 10 team, no way would I consider Indiana over Illinois.

Eh I think youre overrating the Indiana job. Right now if Crean, Izzo, Matta and Weber all left their respective schools, id say that MSU, OSU, Illinois are a toss up (Id go Illinois, OSU, MSU) and that Indiana is significantly behind. (Edit) Indiana hasnt been an elite job since Bob Knight left. Im sorry but Mike Davis, Kelvin Sampson and Tom Crean are all B level or worse coaches.

Depends on how you define top. Kansas is an "elite" job (imo). You are talking about only a handful of schools that would have the "elite" ranking. And even the Kansas coach left for UNC, another elite job. Illinois is a top job. Illinois has had consistent success recruiting Chicago, which is one of the most talented areas in the nation. In terms of the Big 10, Id say Illinois is near the top, if not the top job. Arguably OSU/MSU are up there, but in terms of raw numbers of instate talent Id give the edge to Illinois. I guess if you are talking about one of the top 25 jobs in the nation, its a top job to me. Plenty of people would take the job at Illinois, and only a few would not even consider it.

In terms of rezoning/redevelopment it is almost entirely the Alderman's call. I believe there have only been a handful of times when a rezone/development has been approved against an Aldermans wishes. The most notable would be the Children's Museum. For example, there are Chicago development rules, such as you must have a minimum 1:1 ratio of parking spots to units on all new development. In Alderman Schulter's ward you need to have a 2:1 ratio. Furthermore some wards basically let the community determine whether development will occur. If there are more negative votes than positive votes, the Alderman wont approve. The problem with this system is that people who are negative towards a project are more likely to show up than those who are positive and want redevelopment. If you want to see your community change and be redeveloped, you have to show up at all the community meetings otherwise the negative voices are all they hear. Im not going to even get into the current market for financing.

My hope is that Rahm will be able to get more federal money for things like public transportation, etc. Ive heard that Bush wanted to give Chicago a bunch of money for public transportation but Daley lost out on it because he was unwilling to comply with the requirements (I believe he had to raise parking meter rates and more bus lanes.) In retrospect that was a terrible decision. Daley in the end allowed meter rates to be raised significantly and Chicago did not receive a dime from the federal govt. Hopefully Rahm is better able to get federal money to improve Chicago, because the more money we can get from the federal govt, the more money Chicago can save and balance the budget.

Rock, Both. We all know Gottlieb doesnt know anything about basketball

Reading the first few pages is interesting now that the season is playing out.

Thats why its good to be incumbent, the challenger first has to fight their own party and have a lot of their weaknesses already exposed.

This may be the first time Ive rooted for the Knicks, its odd but feels strangely good.

Supreme Court curb stomped the appellate court. Did I write this opinion? Strikingly close to my argument about why the appellate court ruling would end in absurd results.

Twitter feeds saying he is on the ballot. Opinion is here: http://www.state.il.us/court/Opinions/Supr...uary/111773.pdf

Ruling was to be out at 4:45, so it should be in the news any minute now.

If anyone ever gives you $10,000 to 1 odds you have to take it. Ill take the bet provided I dont have to actually pay if USD wins. I think the shame would be more than $10k.

No they are waiting to hear what type of federal appointments they are going to get from Obama for letting Rahm on the ballot. And by respected I mean that he has a former President and current President supporting him. Regardless of whether you agree with his politics, that is respected. I may not agree with an opinion of Scalia, but I could never say that he isnt respected. At the end of the day, most people in politics got there by being ruthless and using every advantage they could.

Or you mean that Rahm is a respected member of society and therefore a judge is less likely to think that he is perjuring. And who cares if Rahm is besties with Obama, it didnt get him s*** in the Appellate Court. Arguably the Appellate Court had more ties to Burke, the West Side, etc than Rahm. If you are going to attack the political motivations of judges, at least be consistent in saying that while the lower level Court may have been pro-Rahm, clearly the Appellate Court was not. There is no way to prove Rahm was not going to return to Chicago, there are a few ways to prove that he was going to return. The evidence being what it is, I would say its more likely that he would return than not. Being as this is not a criminal proceeding and the evidence standard is preponderance of the evidence, the trier of fact most likely concluded that the evidence suggested that Rahm was more likely to return than not. At the end of the day, some people will think Rahm being linked to Obama means he is a liar, some people will think that it means he is a saint. You hope that a Judge will look at the evidence objectively and make a ruling based on that. In my opinion the lower level court did not make a ruling that was so unbelievable that it must have been tainted by political affiliation. In reality Alderman Burke has the more connection to most judges than Rahm. Burke is the chairman of the judicial slating committee. Burke is considered the "Rahmstopper", so at least we should be fair in our discussion, and consider that there may be some political influence on judges against Rahm. At least be fair.

And a judge can say that they think they are lying. So if a judge has evidence to suggest that the person is lying, they will call them out on it. But there is no evidence Rahm is lying, in fact you wont even see that argument raised at all because its a terrible argument. Rahm owned a house in Chicago, Rahm left personal possessions in Chicago, Rahm testified that they would be returning to Chicago. The judge looked at the evidence and found their testimony CREDIBLE. Thats it, its over, the standard to overturn fact is "manifest weight of the evidence" no way will the Supreme Court overturn the trier of fact on this issue. So it does not matter what I can or can not prove, all that matters is what the trial court found with regard to the evidence. I dont have the transcripts, I dont have the documents, Im not the one putting on the case. But objectively there is no argument in the appeal about whether he factually intended to return. The question is whether or not his absence made him no longer a resident. Which has nothing to do with his future intent. (Edit) And your entire argument about him only returning because of Daley is also speculative and lacks any evidence. The judge clearly weighed both positions and found that it either did not matter, or that he intended to return.

Yes you can determine it, by affidavit. You have Rahm and his wife swear under oath that they were going to return to Chicago. Barring the trier of fact finding that there was a reason to find that untrue or there being facts to suggest that it be untrue, it would be evidence which the trier of fact can consider. The trier of fact considered all evidence and determined that Rahm resided in Chicago. You cant determine anything, that is why we have a trier of fact, to take all of the facts and make a determination. The trier of fact has made a determination, at this point the upper level court is unlikely to disturb the trier of facts opinion, and instead is only going to look at the law. So I dont need to prove it, as its already fact.

But the election board already determined factually Rahm resided in Illinois. And what is "permanent", no one is arguing Rahm was going to permanently live in DC. He owned property in IL, he clearly had an intention to go back, his move to DC was temporary. The question is was a temporary relocation considered an abandonment of his residence, which is a question of fact and was decided by the Circuit Court.

The problem with your argument is now how do we define "physical presence." I think that its clear if Rahm did not rent out his property and had left it as his "House" even if he did not step foot in it for the previous year, he was clearly a resident. The question is, does renting your property, preclude you from having it considered your "residence". There are two sides to the argument. The first side is that, if some one else is living there, it is theirresidence and therefore it is not yours. The second side is that, it is your property, you own it and you clearly have an intent to keep ownership (youre renting it, not selling it) therefore it still is your residence. Furthermore, physical presence clearly does not mean actually being in the state, it means having something in the state, but it definitely does not mean your person. Once again we know this because had Rahm not rented the property, it clearly still would have been his residence, regardless of whether he had not stepped onto the property for 1 year or more. You know Im a litigator right? And that is exactly why I think that the legislature is the one who dropped the ball. I can make the word reside mean what I want depending on what definition I need. I just do not think that there is any way you can say there is a clear definition of reside, because physical presence is unclear at best. There is no guidance as to whether physical presence means actually stepping foot in the state, or having a physical presence. Furthermore, if we are to suggest that physical presence means, actually being in the state, then the proper reading would be that they would have had to not left the state for the last year, because reside requires actually physically being in the state. Thus we know reside can not only turn on actual physical presence, because we know that if I have a house exclusively in IL and I take a vacation for 11 months, that I clearly resided in Illinois. That is why the argument of physical presence fails, because we know that you dont actually have to be in the state to be a resident.

This is the problem with legislatures/ laws, words are not used the same universally. Thus the simplest solution is to define terms in the statute, many statutes have definition sections. This case would be much different had the legislature defined resident/residence in the statute. That way you dont have the same word defined 2 different ways, in 2 different cases leaving the door open to interpretation. I understand the different definitions of reside. In your example you are using "reside" to indicate your domicile. But I could use reside this way: "I am currently living in Florida for the winter, but I reside in Chicago" or "I currently am residing in Florida for the winter, but I live in Chicago." or "I currently reside in Florida for the winter, but I reside in Chicago for the summer." Its a problem when I can use a word interchangeably. I can reside in a location and be there physically, I can reside in a location and not be there physically. I personally believe that if you wanted me to write the opinion I could write it either way and feel pretty good about my argument. There is no clear cut answer in my opinion, and due to that the Supreme Court has to get involved. I dont think they are rewriting the law, they are merely trying to interpret what it actually means. Because as of right now, it means nothing.

Technically Rahm was considered a resident by the trial court, aka the trier of fact. It was the appellate court who then decided to interpret resident to not include Rahm. Resident/residence is not a clear cut term, if anyone is to blame its the legislature.

He is technically a resident of both Illinois and Virginia. But the "best" venue would be Chicago because that is where he is domiciled. The problem with the terms "reside", "residency" etc are that under most laws you can reside in multiple places. (Edit)What I assume most people are interpreting residency to be is "domicile". Im going to steal from a law firm but here is an article about the problem of "residency" in Illinois courts due to inconsistent use of terms: http://www.gitlinlawfirm.com/writings/venue.htm (Edit 2) I know these are distinguishable fact cases, its more to show that these terms are not that clear cut, and that the legislature did us a disservice when they did not take the time to define Reside/Residency in the stature. A simple definition would have saved all of us time, money and effort.

The problem here is that the term resides has different meaning in different contexts. For example, if I was going to sue Rahm, I believe that I could sue him in Cook County and claim that this was his residence. I would argue that he had always lived here and that he had every intent of returning here. That DC/Virginia would be improper venue as those are merely temporary locations. Thus we have a problem with the terminology "reside" as it is undefined in the statute and therefore is going to be based wholly on interpretation of other case law. In my opinion the legislative intent (which if I would actually research if Rahm's team wants to hire me), is that they do not want people to run who have no connection to the City. Thus they have a 1 year requirement, so that the person has some connection to the city. I believe the 1 year requirement was meant to be a minimum in terms of time spent, not that some one who had lived in the area for their entire life, would be excluded because for 1 day in the previous year he happened to live elsewhere (not the exact fact pattern, but if we take this ruling to the logical extreme, the person who did not live in chicago for 1 day in the prior year would technically be disqualified.) As I do not believe that is what the legislature intended, I believe that the law and the interpretation is warped. I believe that the real intent was that a candidate must have substantial connections to the City (OR) have lived in the city for at least 1 year prior. This way if I lived in Chicago my entire life and happened to move for a job for 1 month, I wouldnt be automatically disqualified. But we have a problem, the law is what it is. Circuit court/appellate should only be interpreting the law, they should not make law. The Supreme Court of IL can change law, they could say that the law is unconstitutional under IL law, they could interpret the case law differently, etc. I think that there were good intentions behind the law (not allowing carpetbaggers), but I believe Rahm's situation is not one that was meant to be excluded, it just happened to be due to legislators not being good at drafting laws. There is a shocker.

Right and the statement "No other qualified candidates" was supposed to be hyperbolic to show that it seems some what unjust to knock off a qualified candidate, who no one denies is from Chicago, on a technicality.

Great we have different opinions, not sure how you have done anything to attack my credibility. My position is clear, I would vote for Rahm, therefore my bias is in the open, anyone who wants can see that my opinion may be based on bias. You on the other hand wont even say who you are voting for, nor will you say who is a "qualified candidate" you just merely state that Rham is "corrupt", but you havent even said if you believe that makes Rham unqualified. I guess it may matter if I was trying to have any credibility on who should be mayor, if youve noticed in this thread I actually have not made any arguments for or against Rahm or any other candidates. Ive merely stuck to the argument with regard to the law and the residence requirement. If anything my statement about the non-qualified candidates was to show that it seems silly that we are so stringent about a word "reside", and that Chicago voters can lose the right to vote for a candidate just because of an interpretation of the word, not based on other qualifications. To me that seems silly and not in tune with the spirit of the law. I could not care less about who people want to vote for, everyone has the right to chose whoever they want for whatever reason, I just think that the people of Chicago deserve the chance to vote for the candidate they want, not to lose that right due to an unclear interpretation.