I simply noted he'd not become a resident anywhere else, still voted in Chicago, had property in Chicago, paid Illinois taxes, and was otherwise considered by everyone in America as just another crooked and corrupt Chicago politician.
I think that covers intent.
The court, in my judgment made the correct decision since every American citizen is, one way or the other, a legal resident somewhere, and actually does "reside in" someplace, and once he's established residency for whatever purpose (a license perhaps, to vote, to run for office, etc.) he must affirmatively reject that residency and get another to lose the one he has ~ and he didn't.
I think some folks were interpreting "intent" as little more than a "state of mind" which can't really be determined since people will lie about it.
The court correctly noted that Rahm didn't do anything that said he wasn't going to come back home as soon as possible.
If you apply this to ILLEGAL ALIENS you'd have the court ruling that since they didn't even bother to get here with a visa that allows permanent residency, they have not yet done anything to REJECT their former residency somewhere in Mexico (for 90% of them).
Same with their babies. As far as we can tell someone with Mexican residency birthed them, so presumably the babies share residency with their parents ~ and that's in Mexico.
American born babies are treated the same ~ they share the residency of their parents.
Did you read the appeals court decision?
The law makes a distinction between residency for voting and residency for candidates. Rahm is clearly still a qualified voter in Chicago, but that is only one part of the requirement for candidacy. If only his voting residence mattered, that’s all the candidate law would have specified, but it doesn’t, it requires that the candidate “reside in” the district.
It specifically waives military personnel from the 1-year “resides in” requirement, but it doesn’t waive people “in the service of the United States,” that only applies to voters.