To move or not to move? That is the question that 33-year Northwest Side state Representative Ralph Capparelli (D-15) must answer by May 2.

At present, Capparelli does not live in the 15th Illinois House District, which he was elected in 2002 to represent. That technicality may soon render him legally ineligible to run for the 15th District seat in 2004.

Capparelli is the 41st Ward Democratic committeeman, and he resides in the 20th District, represented by Republican Mike McAuliffe. Unless Capparelli establishes a voting residence within the boundaries of the 15th District by May 2, he will be legally ineligible to seek re-election in that district in 2004. Then, if he wanted to stay in the House, he would have to run against McAuliffe.

"I have no plans to move," said Capparelli, who is the dean of the Illinois House and who will be age 80 in 2004. "I intend to run for re-election as committeeman." Does that mean he's retiring from the House? "I haven't decided," he said.

State law mandates that any state legislator must live in the district that he represents at least 2 years prior to the beginning of his term. But there is an exception to that residency requirement in the first election after the legislative remap which follows the census. In this instance, any incumbent re-elected in 2002 has a grace period to establish residency in his new district. That period expires on May 2 of this year.

This rather bizarre situation arose because Democrats drew the district lines in the 2001 remap, and they supposedly created a safe Northwest Side seat for Capparelli. They put McAuliffe's residence in a suburban district. But Capparelli decided to let his good buddy, fellow incumbent Bob Bugielski, run in the 20th District, and Capparelli ran in the 15th District, an area which stretches from Niles and Morton Grove southeast into Chicago to Kostner and Addison, and as far east as Peterson and Washtenaw. The district takes in all of the 39th Ward and most of the 40th Ward.

Under state law, in an election following the remap, any incumbent can run in any district which contains any part of his old district. Thus, both McAuliffe and Bugielski, both of whom lived outside the 20th District, ran in that district, and Capparelli, whose old 13th District contained precincts in Edgebrook, Niles and Morton Grove, was legally eligible to run in the new 15th District. McAuliffe demolished Bugielski in 2002, and, according to his office, he is in the process of establishing a residence in the 20th District, with the intention of running for re-election in 2004.

A large crowd of contenders is eyeing the 2004 contest for Democratic committeeman in the 41st Ward, but most are waiting for May 2. Capparelli has several options: He could move to the area of Edgebrook west of Lehigh Avenue, which is in both the 41st Ward and the 15th District. That would enable him to run for re-election to both of his current posts. Or he could establish a voting residency in the 39th Ward, Niles or Morton Grove and run for the Illinois House but not for 41st Ward committeeman.

Capparelli need not move from his current residence. He need only buy or rent a home in the 15th District, change his driver's license to that address, and re-register to vote at that address. State law is clear that, if a voter has more than one domicile, he can choose one among them as his primary residence for voting purposes. But Capparelli has to do so by May 2.

Already in the contest for 41st Ward Democratic committeeman is Frank Coconate, head of the Northwest Side Democratic Organization, who finished second to Bugielski in the 2002 Democratic primary for state representative. Coconate said that he is running and that he also intends to run again for the House in the 20th District. Other possible contenders are Mike Marzullo, who lost in February for 41st Ward alderman, Lou Giovanetti, who finished third behind Bugielski and Coconate in the 20th District primary, and Jim McGing, an attorney and the director of operations for the Cook County Department of Corrections, who lost a state Senate race to Wally Dudycz in 1992. Those three likely will stay out of the race if Capparelli runs again, but all three almost certainly will run if Capparelli doesn't. And if Capparelli doesn't run, add John Malatesta, a longtime city worker who ran Bugielski's campaign, to the mix. Malatesta would be Capparelli's choice.

As committeeman, Capparelli has been less than formidable. He has more than $1 million in his House campaign fund, but he doesn't spend that money on ward party-building activities or on attempts to beat Republicans. The 41st Ward is the only ward in Chicago with a Republican alderman, with Brian Doherty being re-elected to his third term in 2003 without any Capparelli-backed opposition, getting 73 percent of the vote.

In 2002, despite an influx of out-of-ward workers from the Blagojevich-for-governor campaign, Republicans Jim Ryan, Joe Birkett and Judy Baar Topinka all carried the ward, for governor, attorney general and state treasurer, respectively. In the 2002 contest between McAuliffe and Bugielski, in which Capparelli vigorously backed Bugielski, McAuliffe carried the 41st Ward by 4,079 votes (62.5 percent). And in the 2000 presidential election, when mayoral brother Bill Daley was running Al Gore's campaign and Mayor Rich Daley wanted a stupendous pro-Gore Chicago showing, the 41st Ward gave Gore just 51.8 percent of the vote, the lowest percentage for Gore in any of Chicago's 50 wards.

Coconate minces no words: "(Capparelli) should be ashamed of himself. He's let the Republicans dominate the ward. We need a change. He's not doing his job, and he doesn't deserve to stay." Capparelli has been committeeman since 1992, when he ousted the late Roman Pucinski from the job.

Capparelli ran unopposed for re-election as committeeman in the 2000 primary, and he got 6,168 votes. In the 2002 primary for state representative, the turnout in the 41st Ward was 9,098, and Coconate got 3,121 votes (34.3 percent) to Bugielski's 3,987 (43.8 percent) and Giovanetti's 1,990 (21.8 percent). Coconate is already actively campaigning for 2004, and he is trying to broaden membership in his organization. He recently had a fund raiser sponsored by state Senator Jim DeLeo (D-10) to retire his 2002 campaign debt.

My early prediction: Capparelli, who has never been overly enamored with Blagojevich, his former House colleague, has plenty of money but not many precinct workers. If he runs again for committeeman in 2004 and spends a bundle, he likely will beat Coconate, but if he takes on McAuliffe, even spending $500,000 would not ensure a victory.

Capparelli will not want to end a 34-year career with a loss. If he retires from the House, that $1 million is his to keep as long as he pays taxes on it. Expect Capparelli to call it quits on his Springfield job, but not to quit his ward post.

Back in the 15th District, Capparelli's successor is a done deal: It will be John D'Amico Jr., a city water department foreman who is the nephew of Alderman Marge Laurino (39th) and the grandson of the late alderman Tony Laurino. The 39th Ward had a state representative for 26 years in Bill Laurino, Marge Laurino's brother, but when he retired in 1996 the seat went to Joe Lyons, out of the 45th Ward.

In 1998 Marge Laurino's husband, 39th Ward Democratic Committeeman Randy Barnette, was set to run for Lyons' House seat, anticipating that Lyons would run for the state Senate seat being vacated by Howie Carroll. But Lyons stayed put, and Barnette switched races and ended up losing the state Senate primary to Ira Silverstein. In 2002 Barnette was primed to run in the 15th House District, but he deferred to Capparelli. Now Barnette, age 50, is the well paid director of governmental affairs for the City Colleges of Chicago, and is their Springfield lobbyist. "I don't expect to run (for Capparelli's seat)," Barnette said.

My prediction: About a third of the 15th District, geographically, is in the suburbs. But more than 80 percent of the Democratic primary voters are in Chicago, with about 40 percent in the 39th Ward. Absent Capparelli, D'Amico will easily win a 2004 primary in the 15th District.

In another political development, Circuit Court Associate Judge Jerome Orbach, a former 46th Ward alderman, is set to retire on May 1, and he has begun a campaign for clerk of the Circuit Court. Orbach, who has been a judge since 1988, likely will face Clerk Dorothy Brown in the 2004 Democratic primary.