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.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Political Consultant Haggerty Conviction Uphold

A New York state appellate panel today unanimously upheld the money laundering and larceny convictions of disgraced political consultant John Haggerty, ordering that he begin serving his original sentence of at least one and one-third years.

A surrender date has yet to be set for Haggerty, who has remained at liberty pending today's appellate decision.

Haggerty was convicted back in October, 2011, of stealing $750,000 in campaign cash from Mayor Bloomberg.

In upholding Haggerty's conviction, the appellate judges found that the jury's verdict was based on legally sufficient evidence.

"The indictment, the proof at trial, the prosecutor's summation and the court's instructions were all based on the theory that defendant Haggerty stole money from Mayor Bloomberg by making false representations that the money that the Mayor transferred to the Independence Party would be used for an extensive ballot security operation costing about $1.1 million," the judges said in their written decision.

"Although the Mayor could not have controlled how the Independence Party used that money, the theft was committed when Haggerty used false representations to cause the Mayor to transfer the money to the Party," they wrote.

"While Haggerty also deceived the Independence Party in to believing that it was paying a vendor for ballot security services when it transferred the money to Haggerty's shell corporation, the Mayor remained the true victim of Haggerty's deception," they wrote.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY Independence Party Presidential Selection

On September 22, 2012, the New York State Committee held what was designated as the Selection of a President/Vice-President ticket.

Some background.  We vote using proxy, and each member carries the votes of their constituents.  The New York Board of Elections changed the final date for a party to select their Federal candidates to September 10th to meet the date to print and deliver military ballots, due to the MOVE Act.  So voting on September 22 would miss the final date.

There were 30 members at the meeting that this year would have been 300 members.  In New York, until this year, we select one male and female to represent each of the 150 Assembly districts.  Starting next year, the State Committee will be made up of 126 members representing the 63 Senate Districts.

On the Presidential issue, there was no mention of the deadline having been September 10th.  The Chairman, Frank MacKay, passed a resolution leaving the line blank.  He said that there had been no real interest from any candidates.

Here is the candidates that will be on the 2012 ballot in New York:

DEMOCRATIC - Barack Obama/Joe Biden
REPUBLICAN - Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan
CONSERVATIVE - Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan
WORKING FAMILIES - Barack Obama/Joe Biden
GREEN - Jill Stein/Cheri Honkala
PSL-SOCIALISM AND LIB - Peta Lindsay//Yari Osorio
LBT-LIBERTARIAN - Gary Johnson/James P. Gray
CST-CONSTITUTION - Virgil Goode/Jim Clymer

So why did the other minor parties understand and make their selections on time?









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Independents and Structural Political Reform

Since 1965 I have registered to vote as an independent. When I moved back to NY in 2000 I registered as an Independence Party member with the thought that I would get evolved in the political process in the future. The following year I was asked to sign an Independence Party petition and this started my political career.

Besides the state and city work there was "CUIP", the Committee for a Unified Independent Party. Over time it morphed into IndependentVoting.org.

We are a national strategy, communications, and organizing center working to connect and empower Americans who identify themselves as independents. Our mission is to develop a movement of independent voters for progressive post-partisan reform of the American political process.

We do not aspire to be another special interest. Independents seek instead to diminish the regressive influence of parties and partisanship by opening up the democratic process. Independents in the CUIP networks are creating new electoral coalitions such as the Black and Independent Alliance, supporting new models of nonpartisan governance and striving for the broadest forms of “bottom-up” participation.

With the size of the independent voting bloc growing, the barriers that limit independent participation have become even more glaring.

I am in my 4th term as a member of the State Committee, County Committee, and New York City Executive Committee representing the Eastside of Manhattan. I also created many of the websites representing Independents nationwide.

Here is a video that represents who we are and where we are going as Independents. That's me in the middle right, on the steps of City Hall.


Open primaries allow for greater political participation, challenging partisan control over the electoral process.

Use the above link to find out more about this independent movement.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Redistricting Misuse and Opportunity To Ballot

The candidates for county legislator in District 4 (Yorktown), part of Jefferson Valley in Westchester NY, are headed to court Thursday in a fight over whether there will be an Independence Party primary.

At issue are the 115 signatures Republican Terrence Murphy collected on an OTB (Opportunity To Ballot) or write-in, petition to vie for the Independence line. In New York Fusion, a candidate from a different party can collect signatures to get on another party's primary ballot. Incumbent Michael Kaplowitz, D-Somers, challenged those petitions, then sued after they were upheld by the Board of Elections last week.

In the suit, filed Aug. 3, Kaplowitz disputes the signatures on several grounds, including claiming that many were signed by people other than those named, that many signees were not registered at the addresses stated and that signatures were obtained by fraud.

"The question is, can we prove it to the court's satisfaction?" Kaplowitz said. "We're just trying to see if we can hit that standard." Murphy, a Yorktown councilman, expressed outrage at the legal challenge, saying he abided by the Board of Elections ruling against his own challenge of Kaplowitz's petitions.
"He doesn't like anyone challenging him," he said. "This is exactly what the incumbency syndrome does."

He cited Kaplowitz's support in May for a redistricting plan that drew Murphy's Jefferson Valley home out of the Westchester Board of Legislators district and into one represented by fellow Republican John Testa.

Murphy said he has been advised that he can run from his current residence but that election law requires him to move into the newly redrawn district by Jan. 1 if he wins. He said he has made provisions to do so.

Kaplowitz said at the time that redistricting was necessary and sought to adhere to school district lines. He said the fight over primary petitions is less important than comparing his record to his challenger's.

"The bottom line is that lines don't vote," he said. "People are going to judge me on my record, my independence and my ability to deliver."









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Goodbye Fred

NYC Independence Party founder Fred Newman passed away on July 3rd, 2011. I returned to my birth state in 2000. I meet Fred in 2001 after joining the NY IP. Over the years I become part of the growth of the party, enjoyed his plays at the Castillo Theatre, and became a supporter of the All Stars Project. At an NYC IP Christmas party, I had Fred sign one of his books that was my gift.

So, GOODBYE Fred.

A year ago this month, NYC Independence Party founder Fred Newman spoke to City Hall about his health, the party's post-Bloomberg outlook and his ongoing feud with the State Independence Party.

Use the above link to read the interview.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NYS General Election Ballot

Thanks to Ballot Access News for this post.

The New York State Board of Elections met and determined whether various petitions for independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, should be determined valid. In New York, the Board disqualifies such petitions even if no one challenges, if the petitions on their face lack any possibility of containing enough valid signatures.

These parties will be on the ballot for statewide office: the five qualified parties (Democratic, Republican, Independence, Conservative, Working Families), followed by these parties: Anti-Prohibition, Freedom, Green, Libertarian, Rent is 2 Damn High, Tea, and Taxpayers. Although the Taxpayers Party is on the ballot now, a lawsuit is pending on whether that petition is valid. The Taxpayers nominee for Governor is Carl Paladino, who is also the Republican nominee.

The Tea Party gubernatorial nominee is Steven Cohn, an attorney from Long Island. His petition had been challenged by allies of Carl Paladino, but the Tea Party petition survived. Cohn is supported by Bobby Kumar, who has been active in the Independence Party and who briefly held himself out last year as national chair of the Reform Party.

The Freedom Party gubernatorial nominee is Charles Barron, who is angry with the Democratic Party because all six of the Democratic Party’s statewide nominees this year are non-Hispanic whites.

We had our New York County Independence Party reorganization meeting yesterday and I was reelected to the Executive Committee. I also was elected for my 4th term as the representative from the 73 A.D. (Eastside of Manhattan) on the NY State Committee of the Independence Party. I was uncontested in the Primary.

NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Party, Movement or Person?

I have been thinking about this topic for awhile. I have always been a person voter. I have always registered since 1965, in one form or other, as an independent. I have been a voter in NY, CA, NJ, and WA. Since retuning to NY in 2000, I decided to take part in the political process and became a member of the Independence Party and now I am in my 4th term as part of the State Committee and local Executive Committee of the party. Since NY is a Fusion state, I am still able to support candidates of different persuasions who share my objectives of structural political reform.

Here in NY, we have a group called CUIP & IndependentVoting.org whose mission is:

A national strategy, communications, and organizing center working to connect and empower the 40% of Americans who identify themselves as independents, to develop a movement of independent voters for progressive post-partisan reform of the American political process. Independents seek to diminish the regressive influence of parties and partisanship by opening up the democratic process. Independents in the CUIP networks are creating new electoral coalitions such as the Black and Independent Alliance, supporting new models of nonpartisan governance and striving for the broadest forms of “bottom-up” participation.

Use the above link to find out more about CUIP.

Here are others with similar thoughs like mine:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg - "Since I've been one of everything in my career at one time or another, I don't think that party matters, What you want are people who are independent in their views. That they don't listen to the party bosses. That they listen to the issues. They're smart enough to analyze it. That they have the experiences that we need in the legislature to know how to address the problems."

Damon Eris, independent blogger - "I am looking forward to the presidential elections of 2040. If, over the next thirty years, the US electorate proves incapable of retiring the majority of sitting legislators and executives, and if, over the same period, the free market proves incapable of retiring the majority of television talking heads we are forced to tolerate, it is a good bet that by 2040 time itself will have retired them for us."

So in the future, are we ready as voters to look at the candidates as indivuals?

NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Wedge issues divide politicians from independents

Thought you might be interested in this article by Ed Hornick, CNN. It quotes Jacqueline Salit, president of independentvoting.org, a national strategy and organizing center for independents and the executive editor of The NEO-Independent magazine.

I have worked with Jackie since 2001 and created / maintain the NEO-Independent website as well as other political websites, like CUIP, we created together. With her and many others in the independent movement, I have been elected for my 4th term as a member of the New York Independence Party State Committee representing the 73rd Ad (Eastside of Manhattan) and the Executive Committee of the Manhattan Independence Party.

She said: "I think there's more and more of a steady recognition that these kind of wedge issues and political manipulation, sensationalism and opportunism is exactly what is degrading the American political process and our democracy." and "I think people can't tell what's going on because the political environment is so polluted by partisanship, The parties are trying to change the subject from things they think can inflame voters on and win elections on. How does that help the country? That hurts the country. And that's what independents are deeply concerned about."

Please use the above link to read the entire article.

NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Independent Streak

I first meet Fred when I returned to NY and registered into the Independence Party in 2001. I am now into my 4th term as the New York State Independence Party State Committee member for the 73rd AD (Eastside of Manhattan) and a member of the Manhattan Executive Committee of the New York City Independence Party Organizations. But just as important is the many plays I saw by Fred as the Artistic Director of the Castillo Theater. Fred is having some health problems and we all wish him well.

This interview is by Chris Bragg of City Hall News.

Fred Newman, the controversial psychotherapist, philosopher, playwright and political activist, has not been in the news as much as his onetime nemesis, Frank MacKay, the chair of the State Independence Party who once tried to boot Newman from the party over his beliefs.

Nonetheless, the city-based faction of the Independence Party has been working hard to make one last push for non-partisan elections, while watching MacKay’s travails from afar. Newman discussed his desire to see Mayor Michael Bloomberg push harder for non-partisan elections, how the state Independence Party has strayed from its roots, and why reporters do not call him very much anymore.

What follows is an edited transcript.

City Hall: The charter revision commission’s staff report recommended that non-partisan elections not go on the ballot this year. What can the Independence Party of New York City do to try and change that?
Fred Newman: Well, the Citizens Union, I understand, did a very, very good report and I was hoping that that would perhaps change the opinion of the commissioners. It certainly would have changed mine. I thought their report was quite good and quite convincing, but it doesn’t seem that the commissioners have been convinced, but I cannot understand why they wouldn’t be.

CH: Is there any formal campaign by the party to push for non-partisan elections?
FN: Well, we’ve been in that campaign mode for a very, very long time, so we have no new tricks that we can do. We were hoping that the commission would respond to that and they don’t seem to have. The answer is that there’s not much we can do.

CH: You brought several hundred people to a hearing in the Bronx who were very vocal in their support of non-partisan elections. How did the party drum up so much interest in the issue?
FN: We received 150,000 votes in the last mayoral race. We have a lot of support in the communities and we can bring our people, but apparently bringing our people doesn’t mean that much to the commission. So I’m not going to be in any way calling out our people from the communities anymore. I don’t think at this point it would make a difference. I am not trying to do it. I don’t know of anything else we can do. I am sure there are some people on the commission who are more sympathetic than others, but I have no way of knowing who they are.

CH: If non-partisan elections were on the ballot, why would it pass this year after getting 30 percent of the vote in 2003?
FN: Things have changed dramatically. Virtually every condition has changed. I think that since 2003 or whatever it was, what’s happened in the country is a major change. There is much more of a mood of being concerned that government is not being responsive, so that’s a very, very big difference. The Citizens Union report, for example, which indicates the citizen’s party has changed, I think also indicates why so many other people have changed. [Citizens Union did not support non-partisan elections in 2003.] The growth of the New York Independence Party is substantial, and the temperament of the country— including New York City, since New York City is, after all, much as we might sometimes deny it, part of the country—is that people are dissatisfied with the way candidates are selected.

CH: Non-partisan elections recently passed California. Does that translate to more support in New York City?
FN: Well, we had many people out in California working on this and they were using the same audience that we are here, so I guess in that sense, yes.

CH: Do you wish the mayor would weigh in a little more in support of non-partisan elections?
FN: His promise, his statement was to assure that he would do what he could do to make sure that it was considered. He created the commission, so he fulfilled that commitment. He didn’t make a commitment to work for it or be outspoken for it, although he has been before on the record. If you asked me subjectively today, would I have wanted him to do more, I suppose it would have been helpful. But I don’t think he has violated any promises.

CH: What do you think the future of the Independence Party of New York City is going to look like once Mayor Bloomberg is not in office anymore?
FN: The New York Independence Party existed before and grew substantially before our connection to Mayor Bloomberg and it will do so after he is off the political scene. There will be new people coming in and there will be new issues coming up and we’ll continue to participate. I think it will surely continue to be a political reform party.

CH: What’s your take on what’s going on with the State Independence Party? Some of the local chairs are upset that their endorsement decisions were overruled.
FN: It’s hard for me to say since I was involved with the state committee a long time ago and it was mostly people from New York City. It’s a democracy disaster, but no one has bothered looking into it. I have no real opinions on what’s going on there, but I know that it’s a very important development that the party seems to be a radical party in terms of its way of operating and functioning, and [Frank] MacKay made his decisions, I think, heavily under the influence of the Democratic Party.

CH: Do you see the State Independence Party as leaving its ideological roots as some suggest?
FN: When I was involved with the party, the local organizations used to make those decisions, essentially, the state chair and the state organization didn’t do it all. The local organizations made those decisions and those were the rules of the party, and MacKay has changed all that, that’s no longer true. The key to the party is internal democracy, but he’s turned it into a regular third party in New York State. I don’t think he is doing anything worse than any other third parties in the history of the state. It was very important to me that at the beginning we made an effort to change that, and that was completely abandoned by MacKay.

CH: There have also been some issues that have arisen regarding MacKay’s outside interests and his wife’s computer company. Does that surprise you?
FN: It doesn’t surprise me because that’s what happens, it seems to me, in all parties, major or minor, when they have no real concern with internal democracy—that is the kind of thing that happens. Why would it surprise me? I’m 75 years old.

CH: Pedro Espada is an old ally of yours. Will you help him in his primary?
FN: Not that I know of, I don’t think so. He hasn’t asked us, and it’s a Democratic primary.

CH: What else are you up to these days?
FN: I do everything I did when I was 35, 45, except I do it much more slowly. I do some teaching, some writing. I listen to a lot of music, I read the papers and I participate in New York City political life.

CH: Anything else you’d like to add?
FN: That’s a hard question for me to answer. I like to discuss many, many things, but I’ve received fewer and fewer requests for my opinions on these things over the years. People see me as too radical, I guess. I’ve been kind of checked out on the public debate on these kinds of questions. So, I appreciate that you’re asking me for my opinion.

Use the above link to find out more about my friend Fred.

NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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