Will County Judge Jennifer Lynch will make a decision next week on a case that could have an impact on local elections across Illinois.

Lynch heard arguments Monday on the case seeking to remove Joliet City Council member Juan Moreno from office.

On next Monday, she will decide whether to end the case in one side’s favor or allow it to proceed to trial.

A decision against Moreno would mark the first time that a state’s attorney’s office in Illinois is able to remove an elected official based on pre-election residency requirements.

The Will County State’s Attorrney’s Office wants Moreno removed from office, saying he did not meet the required residency requirements before running in the 2025 election.

“This is an extraordinary ask to remove an elected councilman for an alleged pre-election violation,’” Moreno’s attorney Burton Odelson told Lynch at one ponet.

Assistant State’s Attorney Scott Pyles said the case was brought after an in-depth examination of Moreno’s residency that could not have been done in the time allowed for objections before candidates are placed on the ballot.

“We have a job to do,” Pyles said. “Somebody has to check the qualifications of a candidate who runs for office. I don’t like it. But somebody has to do it.”

The state’s attorney’s office contends that Moreno’s legal residency was in a house at 819 Baskin Drive, which is outside the city limits.

Moreno driver’s license, vehicle records and voter’s registration all indicated that he lived on Baskin Drive, and he voted in a March 2024 primary based on that address, Pyles said.

He did not formally change his address to Jonathan Simpson Drive, which is inside the city limits, until August 2024, just a few months before filing to run in the City Council election of April 2025.

Pyles contended that Moreno did not meet the one-year residency requirement for city candidates.

Moreno’s case is based on his moving away from his family and into the home of a relative at the Jonathan Simpson Drive address in time to meet the one-year residency requirement.

The move was made because of relationship problems with Moreno’s fiancee and the mother of his children, both sides agree.

Moreno’s attorneys argue that the move was sufficient to establish city residency.

Any challenge to Moreno’s residency should have been done before the April 2025 election, Odelson said.

“It’s not in the state’s province to come after him with the venom and the anger and the we’re-going-to-get-him attitude,” Odelson said at the hearing on Monday.

The last case to be brought against an elected official challenging pre-election residency was 50 years ago, Odelson noted.

“Since then nothing,” he said.

Pyles, however, pointed to that case and others as examples that a candidate could not use a temporary home to establish residency when official documents listed his address elsewhere.

Moreno moved in with relatives after leaving his fiancee and has shown a lease for the arrangement. But Pyles repeatedly emphasized that all legal documents continued to tie Moreno to the Baskin Drive address where he continued to get mail.

“Renting a room with a member of the family, I don’t think that meets the legal requirement of residency,” Pyles siad. “There isn’t anything for him to rely on to say, ‘I lived in the city of Joliet.’”

Lynch said she would tell attorneys of her decision on Monday.