5 Replies to “A Long Day at the Chicago Board of Elections for Chicago Clout and Rahm hiding somewhere”

  1. chicagotribune.com
    Emanuel’s renter ends campaign
    Election board begins hearings, sorting through objections to former Obama chief of staff, other candidates
    By Kristen Mack and John Chase, Tribune reporters

    8:46 PM CST, December 6, 2010

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    The curious candidacy of Rahm Emanuel’s renter ended Monday when he dropped out of the mayor’s race, capping a daylong carnival that featured dozens of opponents pressing their case to knock the former White House chief of staff off the ballot.

    The renter, 59-year-old industrial developer Rob Halpin, formally withdrew his candidacy just hours before a hearing was scheduled to address objections to his petitions.

    “The realities of entering the race at this relatively late stage, including the financial and legal hurdles I’d have to leap in order to win, have forced me to reassess my intention to run at this time,” Halpin said in a prepared statement. “I have no plans to either endorse or work against any current candidates and have faith that the voters of Chicago will make the right choice in electing new leadership.”

    Halpin was not among the scores of candidates, lawyers and activists who flooded the office of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners for the first day of hearings into a record 426 ballot objections. Instead, his paperwork was filed by veteran election attorney Burt Odelson, who has come to occupy a central role in the political gamesmanship over who will run to succeed Mayor Richard Daley.

    Odelson has been spearheading a legal objection to Emanuel’s bid for mayor that is based in part on the fact that Halpin is leasing Emanuel’s house. The lawyer argues that Emanuel doesn’t fulfill the requirement that candidates must live in the city for a year before the Feb. 22 election.

    Odelson said he has been talking with Halpin since before Emanuel returned to Chicago, as part of his preparations for challenging Emanuel’s candidacy. Along the way, he said, he agreed to review Halpin’s paperwork to run for mayor.

    Halpin’s impromptu candidacy had been in doubt all along and became more questionable after disclosures casting doubt on the legitimacy of his candidacy petitions. Halpin submitted more than the required 12,500 signatures, but the Tribune reported last week that a number of people allegedly involved in the signature-gathering process said their names were used without their knowledge.

    On Monday, Odelson said he was relieved to file Halpin’s withdrawal.

    “I was thrilled to death,” Odelson said. “He’s just a witness now, which is great, which is what I wanted.”

    But Odelson was not thrilled about the circuslike atmosphere over efforts to remove Emanuel. On top of his objection, there are more than 30 others from citizens, community activists — even one filed by a mayoral opponent, William “Dock” Walls.

    Many of those objecting to Emanuel crammed into the board’s basement conference room where a half-dozen different cases were being heard. The anti-Emanuel crowd was raucous, with some wearing “Indict Rahm” buttons and recording the proceedings with hand-held cameras. Others complained that the election board was a fraudulent entity that couldn’t be trusted.

    The hearing officer, Joseph A. Morris, consolidated all the objections into one case that will begin in earnest Monday with witnesses, including Emanuel and Halpin. Odelson protested that some of the other objections are off-target and could water down his argument.

    “I think it’s going to turn into a little bit of a circus,” Odelson said. “What troubles me is the cadre of folks that we have here who are going to enter things into the record that have nothing to do with this case. … I want to do my case and go.”

    Emanuel’s campaign also expressed its feeling that the case had taken on a less-than-professional tenor. The campaign provided reporters copies of a Chicago city sticker they said was on Emanuel’s car to counter Odelson’s newest claim that Emanuel had never purchased such a city sticker and therefore could be disqualified because he owed the city money.

    Campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said Emanuel purchased city stickers through June 2009 but didn’t get a new one because the Emanuel family took their car to Washington. The candidate purchased one upon his return.

    “All of this is an irrelevant diversion from what matters,” LaBolt said in a statement.

    After the Emanuel hearing, Odelson put on his other hat as the election lawyer for state Sen. James T. Meeks, who is also running for mayor and faces a ballot challenge as well. Odelson says Meeks is not part of his challenge of Emanuel’s petitions.

    Amid the hullabaloo over Emanuel, the board voted to knock four little-known mayoral candidates off the ballot.

    The board voted to remove M. Tricia Lee, Jay Stone, Ryan Graves and Tommy Hanson from the ballot on the grounds they clearly didn’t meet the requirements.

    Fifteen candidates are still in the running for mayor.

    Tribune reporter Jeff Coen contributed to this report.

  2. Rahm Emanuel’s tenant drops out of mayor’s race

    By Abdon m. pallasch

    Political Reporter

    Dec 6, 2010 11:01PM

    Rahm Emanuel’s tenant has dropped out of the mayor’s race.

    Rob Halpin’s surprise entry into the race — after his refusal to move out of the former White House chief of staff’s North Side home fueled a residency challenge against Emanuel’s mayoral candidacy — threatened to provide a sideshow to Emanuel’s campaign and the challenge itself.

    Both Emanuel and Halpin are expected to be called as witnesses Monday in the first day of hearing’s on the residency challenge against Emanuel.

    Halpin is a developer of industrial properties. The Sun-Times has documented a series of problems with the petitions he submitted to run for mayor, but Halpin made no mention of those problems in his statement announcing his withdrawal from the race:

    “With the end of a political era pending, the City of Chicago faces some enormous challenges. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I considered a mayoral run because I am passionate about the city, its residents and its future. However, the realities of entering the race at this relatively late stage, including the financial and legal hurdles I’d have to leap in order to win, have forced me to reassess my intention to run at this time,” Halpin said.

    “As of today, I am officially ending my candidacy for mayor. It is my sincere hope that, as a city, we come together to address the difficult choices ahead. Although I will not run in 2011, I plan to continue to do all I can, working with both the public and private sectors, to help bring jobs and opportunities to the citizens of Chicago, who have long lost jobs to the suburbs and collar counties.

    “I have no plans to either endorse or work against any current candidates and have faith that the voters of Chicago will make the right choice in electing new leadership. Should circumstances ever dictate the need for new leadership, I would remain open to the idea of running in the future when I can more fully put together a campaign capable of bringing real, ethical, responsive leadership and vision to the City. Thank you.”

    Halpin’s exit from the mayor’s race drops to 15 the number of candidates still running — down from the original 20.

    On the first day of ballot hearings, election officials knocked off four other candidates with the most obviously flawed petitions: M. Tricia Lee, Jay Stone, Tommy Hanson and Ryan Graves.

    More candidates are expected to drop off in the coming days and weeks as hearings proceed on candidates’ challenges to each other’s petitions.

    The most widely attended hearing Monday was on the residency challenge to Emanuel’s candidacy. Some 32 objectors and their entourages crowded into a small space.

    Attorney Burt Odelson said he hoped to have a clean issue to take up to the appellate and possibly state Supreme Court about whether Emanuel met the residency requirement.

    But 31 other objectors in the mix means issues about Emanuel’s signatures and whether he filed his statement of economic interest in time will also be discussed. Emanuel could face questions Monday from 32 different objectors, not just Odelson.

    Odelson also raised a new issue of whether Emanuel bought a city sticker for his car every year, and, if he did not, did he violate a rule against candidates being in debt to the city. Emanuel’s campaign said he bought the stickers.

    One objector, Jeffrey Joseph Black, also shouted that he thought Emanuel ought to be indicted, and he wants to argue that Emanuel or the Chicago Board of Elections are operating as a “racketeering operation.” That’s the kind of “circus” atmosphere that could cloud what Odelson said is a serious residency case against Emanuel.

    Hearing officer Joseph Morris said he will try to keep out extraneous issues. For instance, he would not entertain a subpoena to make President Obama come Chicago, raise his right hand and testify what dates Emanuel has been serving him as chief of staff.

    “That would be a waste of the president’s time and a waste of my time,” Morris said.

  3. More show and tell by 48th ward Alderman Canidate Pat who sits in the hearing room all day to get attention. …..(Response) You did not leave all your contact information. You can say what you want if we know who you are. Just manup. And get your facts right.

  4. WOW “manup” that’s funny coming from you since you ACT like this isn’t your site in your responses. Talk about the “pot calling the kettle black”. (Response) Why do you act as if you have no loyalties in the race. Say something and than move forward.

  5. I, indeed have my “loyalties”, as you well now. However, I do like SOME of the things you say you want to do in our ward. What I don’t like is all your negativity about the ward. You should stick to the issues and talk about how you intend pulling off ALL your ideas for making the ward a better and safer place for all the residents. I am sick of ALL the negativity and hypocrisy of ALL politicians and basically ONLY want to hear how to accomplish change in a way that is not in attack mode. People like you blow a lot of smoke and when it clears, there’s nothing different. Same old same old. (Response) Well put, I agree. Stay tuned.

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