Which box do you check on Rahm?

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

Now that we’ve all climbed out of Rahm Emanuel’s basement, maybe this would be a good time to consider what we were doing down there in the first place.

If the ballot eligibility case against Emanuel is a diversion from the mayoral campaign, then the search for the boxes containing Emanuel’s prized personal possessions was a diversion within a diversion.

In the end, the strange affair did make one important point: Emanuel and his wife left a lot of personal stuff behind when they moved their family to Washington while he was serving as the chief of staff to President Obama.

This bolsters his case that he wasn’t abandoning his residency in Chicago when he rented out his Ravenswood house. But it’s just one fact among many in evidence, not all of which cut in Emanuel’s favor.

The mystery of the boxes wouldn’t have become such a major point of contention if those trying to knock him off the ballot hadn’t tried so hard to make it look as if Emanuel was lying when he testified to their existence. The subsequent evidence showed he wasn’t lying, and they looked foolish for having made an issue of it, when the truth was right there under their noses, or at least under the Emanuels’ new addition in the crawl space. To be clear, though, the residency case against Emanuel is more than just a diversion. It’s a serious effort to eliminate the candidate currently perceived as having the best chance of winning the election, and in the alternative, to generate animosity against him by portraying him as both an outsider and someone who is trying to pull a fast one.

On the latter score, at least, I’d say his opponents — seen and unseen — have had some success, although my own perception may be affected from having spent most of three days last week being held captive by the strange group of objectors who have made it their personal mission to stop him — not counting the election lawyer, Burt Odelson, for whom this is just business.

While I don’t find the objectors to be representative of average Chicagoans, their anti-Emanuel rhetoric keeps circling back to me from enough places that I’m sure it’s gained a foothold among certain constituencies.

Having heard from lots of people about this in recent weeks, I’m struck by how so many are trying to apply their own common sense understanding to the dispute — and coming to entirely opposite conclusions.

On the one side, you have the people who look at the situation and see that Emanuel moved his family to Washington, and for them it’s an open and shut case. They see a person’s residence as a straightforward matter of where they live, where they go to sleep at night. Emanuel no longer lived here. He rarely even came back to visit, therefore he couldn’t be a resident here. That’s their view.

On the other side, you have the people who see that he was a congressman here for the eight years preceding his joining Obama, still owns his house here, only left Chicago when he took a job that would preclude him from coming home on weekends as a congressman does, and they say: of course he’s a resident.

In a perfect world, the law pretty well tracks with our common sense, but not always.

I am not a lawyer, and I have been doing this job long enough to know better than to play one in the newspaper.

But since some ask what the law says, I can at least cite the pertinent state statutes — as long as you understand there is more to the law than statutes, but also case law.

In Chapter 65 of the Illinois Combined Statutes we find the Municipal Code, which sets forth qualifications for elective municipal office. The pertinent paragraph states:

“A person is not eligible for an elective municipal office unless that person is a qualified elector of the municipality and has resided in the municipality at least one year next preceding the election or appointment, except as provided in subsection (c) of Section 3.1-20-25, subsection (b) of Section 3.1-25-75, Section 5-2-2, or Section 5-2-11.”

A subsequent paragraphs explains that a person who has been on active duty military service outside the municipality is deemed to have been a resident for purposes of meeting the residency requirement.

Then you also need to look at Chapter 5, the Election Code, for what it takes to be a “qualified elector.”

That’s where you find this section: “A permanent abode is necessary to constitute a residence within the meaning of Section 3-1. No elector or spouse shall be deemed to have lost his or her residence in any precinct or election district in this State by reason of his or her absence on business of the United States, or of this State. “

Now you can play lawyer.