Chicago Mayor Election 2011: Emanuel has big lead in Tribune poll

[Хahar 🤔]

In Minnesota in 2002, a State Senator was drawn outside of his district after redistricting. He got his friend who owned a bar in the district that had a weird unused room in the backroom to "rent" him that room for like $50/month and declared that his official residence. It stood.

I don't think that residency requirements for state legislatures are constitutional.

[Хahar 🤔]

In Minnesota in 2002, a State Senator was drawn outside of his district after redistricting. He got his friend who owned a bar in the district that had a weird unused room in the backroom to "rent" him that room for like $50/month and declared that his official residence. It stood.

I don't think that residency requirements for state legislatures are constitutional.

Yes they are.   California is confused on this issue.

The California Supreme Court ruled on durational residence requirements for city officials at about the same time there were a bunch of federal court rulings upholding legislative durational requirements for various states.  The California made note of these decisions and noted that they all applied to legislatures, and their decision only applied to city officials.

The last time a legislative durational requirement had come up, there were some fact issues as to whether a candidate had lived in the district long enough.  The California Supreme Court vacated the decision of a lower court, saying that they shouldn't have even considered the issue, since each house of the legislature determines whether its members are qualified and properly elected - not the judicial or executive branches.

Nonetheless, the SOS (Jerry Brown at that time) decided that durational requirements for the legislature were not valid.  It has never really mattered since he didn't have the authority to determine if candidates were qualified in the first place.

But last year there was a case where an assemblyman had moved into a senate district where the incumbent decided not to run (the assemblyman had represented a large chunk of the senate district, but he lived in a part of the assembly district that was not in the senate district).

This was challenged in court.  A lower court ruled that the SOS could decide who was eligible to run, since he had a duty to make the voters pamphlet accurate, and it was OK for him to interpret the US constitution in a way that no federal court ever has.  The California Supreme Court didn't take the case.  But they could have just decided that it was a matter for the legislature to decide.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. I always found the way California does things rather strange.