The Independent View: NY IP, NYC Local Control, and NY Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court, is composed of a Chief Judge and six Associate Judges, each appointed to a 14-year term. New York's highest appellate court was established to articulate statewide principles of law in the context of deciding particular lawsuits. The Court thus generally focuses on broad issues of law. There is no jurisdictional limitation based upon the amount of money at stake in a case or the status or rank of the parties.

On April 24th 2008, I and other New York City Independence Party Organizations' members rode to Albany to support our council, Harry Kresky, Esq., argue the fight for Local Control in front of The New York Court of Appeals.

The Issue:

The County Committees are the sole vehicle for local control of the affairs of the New York City Independence Party. Since the Independence Party was founded in 1994, the New York City organizations have been the democracy wing (Ground up and Grassroots vs. the state's Top Down) of the party. There has been an intense fight within the Independence Party over the issue of whether local party organizations would control their own nominations or have those nominations dictated to them by the state party. The State Chairman, Frank MacKay, succeeded in abolishing local control everywhere in the state except in New York City.

After many fights in the local courts against the State Independence Party chairman to first remove many of the New York City members of the State Committee, including me, and then to take away the local control to select candidates for the party ballot line, we arrived at the Court Room.

Trying not to be overwhelmed by the court room originally designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in 1881, and as the court moved to different buildings over the years, stayed intact, we took our seats. The case is about Local Control.

Then the court entered, and Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, began the oral arguments portion of the Local Control case.

The New York Court of Appeals has upheld the right of the five county committee organizations of the Independence Party in New York City to approve citywide candidates from other parties who seek to run on our line.

This sounds like we won. But Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye did a Judgment of Solomon.

She allowed the Mayor, Comptroller, and Public Advocate candidates to be selected locally by the New York City Executive Committee, currently made of of 82 of the over 3,500 members of the five boroughs' County Committee members. This gave the state chairman the ability to select all the rest. The 51 members of the New York City Council, the five New York City Borough Presidents, and the New York City members' state Legislature, 25 in the Senate and 59 in the Assembly, who represent the city.

Where did the concept of LOCAL CONTROL go?

A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an opinion in a legal case written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment. When not necessarily referring to a legal decision, this can also be referred to as a minority report.

So here is my dissent, the New York City Independence Party Organizations have the grassroots ground operation. It is our members, over 100,000, and the over 3,500 of them who elected to be County Committee members, who will do the selecting with our voices and our feet.