On January 24, an Illinois State Appeals Court ruled 2-1 that Rahm Emanuel does not meet the one-year residency requirement to serve as Mayor of Chicago. Therefore, he is off the ballot, although it is virtually certain that the State Supreme Court will hear Emanuel’s appeal very quickly. The election is February 22. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for this news. The majority decision is 24 pages and the dissent is 17 pages.

Although this is a complicated issue, a quick reading suggests that the majority decision is not convincing. Furthermore, as the dissent notes, the case should probably have been certified to the State Supreme Court, and the fact that it wasn’t certified to the State Supreme Court (even though it is bound to go there anyway) will make difficulties for election administrators relating to time.

Several bills have been introduced in the Oklahoma legislature to move the non-presidential primary from the last Tuesday in July, to the last Tuesday in June. They are SB 602, HB 1615, and HB 2138. These bills also all move the deadline for the petition for a newly-qualifying party from May 1 to March 1.

A petition deadline of March 1, for new parties, is very likely to be held unconstitutional. Similar deadlines for new parties have been held unconstitutional in Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Tennessee. Thanks to Richard Prawdzienski for the news about these bills.

The difference between HB 1615 and HB 2138 is that the latter bill also moves the presidential primary from February to March. Besides that bill, there are two other bills that move the presidential primary date, but do not move the date for the non-presidential primary. They are SB 808 and HB 1614. Thanks to Josh Putnam for the news about those latter two bills.

On January 20, Randall Terry, who has been a leading anti-legal-abortion activist for many decades, declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for President in 2012. See this story. His chief motivation seems a desire to run television campaign ads that show unpleasant photographs that relate to the abortion process. Broadcast television stations are not permitted to censor the content of ads run by candidates, nor can the stations refuse to air these ads, if the candidate is able to pay the station’s charges for running the ads.

The story does not mention whether or not Terry will seek primary season matching funds, but chances are, he will. Thanks to Bill Van Allen for this news.