CHICAGO (AP) — Attorneys for former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel are focused on showing that he always planned to come back to Chicago after he finished working for President Barack Obama.
A Chicago Board of Election Commissioners hearing
on residency challenges to Emanuel's mayoral bid enters its third day Thursday
with more witnesses expected to testify.
More than two dozen opponents say he doesn't have a
legal right to run because he lived for nearly two years in Washington.
Wednesday's testimony wrapped up with a longtime
friend of Emanuel's talking about how long he planned to work for Obama, who
was elected in 2008. Marj Halperin, a communications consultant, said Emanuel
told her in June that the chief of staff job has "always been two years
and out."
Halperin said Emanuel made clear when he initially
took the job that his move to Washington wasn't permanent because he and his
wife weren't selling their Chicago home.
"He did not intend to stay and he was looking
forward to moving back to his house," she said.
Earlier Wednesday the hearing focused on the family
items that Emanuel said he left behind in his basement when his family moved to
Washington in the summer of 2009.
The woman renting Emanuel's house testified that
she had not seen treasured items Emanuel said were left in the basement.
But Mee Kim-Chavez, a friend of Emanuel's wife, Amy
Rule, told a hearing officer she helped pack up their family heirlooms and
mementos so they could be stored in a basement crawlspace under a home addition
they'd build. She recalled helping Rule store 20 to 30 boxes in the crawlspace.
"She was going to come back. There was no need
for her to take them with her to D.C.," Kim-Chavez said of the
possessions.
Her testimony came after the woman renting
Emanuel's Chicago home told the panel she hadn't come across most of the items
Emanuel described leaving behind.
Lori Halpin told a hearing officer that she has
never seen any of the 100 boxes or some of the other valuable family
possessions that Emanuel has said were left behind, including in a locked area
of the home's basement.
Emanuel testified Tuesday about belongings in his
home, including his wife's wedding dress, clothes his children wore home from
the hospital just after they were born, family china and others to defend
himself against allegations that he forfeited his Chicago residency when he
leased his home and moved to Washington.
But Halpin said she was unaware of any items like
that being left in the house.
"I have never found anything locked in the
house," said Halpin, who moved into the house in August 2009.
She said the Emanuels did leave some items behind
including a piano, their master bed, an old couch, TV and an old cassette
player.
Halpin acknowledged there are two areas of the
house she has not been able to access — an area behind a panel in the attic
master bedroom and another behind a panel with hinges behind shelves in the
basement.
Emanuel's lawyers asked Halpin if it was possible
that the Emanuel family possessions are located there.
"Anything could be possible, I have no
idea," she said.
Halpin and her husband Rob refused to move out of
Emanuel's house when he wanted to break their lease and move back in as he ran
for mayor. Rob Halpin also filed paperwork to run for mayor but withdrew from
the crowded field shortly after.
Emanuel is fighting for a spot on the Feb. 22
ballot to replace the retiring Mayor Richard Daley, who didn't seek a seventh
term.
More than two dozen people have challenged
Emanuel's candidacy papers saying he doesn't meet the requirement that
candidates live in the city for a full year before the election. He moved back
to Chicago in October after working for nearly two years in Washington. His
wife and their children will remain in Washington until the end of the school
year.
Emanuel endured nearly 12 hours of questioning
Tuesday from everyone from attorneys to a woman named Queen Sister. A Chicago
Tribune/WGN poll released Tuesday night showed Emanuel with an early lead,
though 30 percent of those polled were undecided.
After the testimony ends, the hearing officer will
make a recommendation on whether Emanuel's name should be on the ballot to the
full Chicago Board of Election Commissioners. Officials have said they need to
settle on the list of candidates well before the Feb. 22 election.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.
Photo
Caption: Objectors photograph a 2008-09 Chicago city sticker belonging to Rahm
Emanuel while he testifies before the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners
during a hearing challenging his residency to run as Mayor in Chicago, Tuesday,
Dec. 14, 2010. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)
