NY's 1.8 Million Citizens Without State Legislature Representation

Twelve state legislative districts lack either an Assembly member or senator and Gov. Cuomo will not call for special elections in 2014, but will deny citizens full representation.

So let's get this straight, New York will burden their electoral system with costly multiple primaries, June Federal and September State, for the convenience and political advantage of lawmakers, but when it comes to holding special elections so that more than a million people have actual representation, all of a sudden the state is worried about money?

Whose democracy is this, anyway?

These 12 vacant seats in the state Legislature, including two in the Senate and ten in the Assembly.  Altogether, those districts are home to about 1.8 million people.

Most of the vacancies occurred because lawmakers were elected to another office or took another job. Others were vacated after scandals or felony convictions.

The New York Voting Rights Consortium says about 800,000 of those New Yorkers are people of color.

We can't put a price tag on democracy!










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Rep. Storobin Declared Winner In NY Special State Senate Election

More than two months after a New York Special State Senate election in Brooklyn, Republican David Storobin was named the winner Thursday.

The final results of a hand recount has him winning by just 14 votes out of more than 22,000 cast.

The final result won't be certified until the New York Board of Elections meets Tuesday.

Storobin's tenure could be short since the legislature's last day in session is June 21 and the district will no longer exist next year after legislative district lines were redrawn.

Democrat Lew Fiddler conceded the race Thursday after weeks of contesting the results in court.

He congratulated his opponent, but maintains Storobin engaged in absentee ballot fraud.

The special election was held after former Sen. Carl Kruger resigned in the wake of a corruption scandal.

What's next for Fidler!

A previously discussed challenge to Republican State Sen. Marty Golden seems unlikely, according to confidants, especially since that would be an uphill battle, and Fidler's loss allows him to simply retain his City Council seat. More likely is a run for Brooklyn Borough President in 2013, according to one Brooklyn lawmaker close to Fidler. "There is a significant opening in the Borough President race," the lawmaker said, noting the recent departure from the race of Carlo Scissura, the Chief of Staff for current BP Marty Markowitz.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY Party Leaders Keep a Grip on Special Elections

As a reader of this blog, you know how important open primaries are to me. In NY it is an ongoing fight. So here is an update on the upcoming Special Elections in NY.

In the age of the endless campaign and the political marathon, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has come up with a kind of electoral lightening round. On July 1, Cuomo announced that special elections to fill six empty Assembly seats, four of them from the NYC, as well as the Brooklyn/Queens seat in the House of Representatives left empty in the wake of the Anthony Weiner scandal, would take place Sept. 13.

While that may seem far away, on the downside of a summer that has only begun, it set off a rapid scramble. Nominating documents for party sanctioned candidates are due Monday, 10 days after Cuomo issued his proclamations. Candidates running without the imprimatur of their party had to amass signatures, vet and file them all no later than midnight of July 13.

These would represent tight deadlines any time of the year, let alone in July and during a period that encompassed a three-day weekend. How can rank and file party members, let along ordinary voters, influence the process?

The answer is, to a great extent, they can't. And that may very well be the point.
Under New York State law, special elections take an end run around primaries, putting the choice of party nominees entirely in the hands of the party leadership. On the day of the special election, voter select among the nominees of any party that they choose to be on the ballot. But in a state where many districts feature wildly lopsided party registrations, that comes down to little or no choice at all.

As a result turnout can be light to virtually nonexistent.

To take an extreme case, in a June 2009 special election to fill an Assembly vacancy in the Bronx, only 2.3 percent of voters turned out, according to a recent analysis by Citizens Union. Democrat Marcos Crespo won 1,457 votes to defeat Republican Leopold Paul, who got a mere 106 votes.

Statewide, the turnout in special legislative elections between 2007 and this June was only 12.3 percent. For the NYC alone, the number was lower, just under 10 percent.

Under state law, Cuomo did not have to call a special election, at least for the Assembly seats, according to the report by Citizens Union. If he had not, there been a primary for those positions on Sept. 13, which is primary day, followed by a general election in November.

Good government groups criticized Cuomo's decision to take the special election route instead. "We strongly disagree with this decision, which we believe will result in lower voter turnout, increased confusion at the polls and potentially higher costs to localities, the statement said. It went on to assail the special elections for empowering "the interests of party leaders, rather than presenting voters with a real choice of candidates at the polls."

Some editorial pages agreed. "Party leaders will now get to choose the candidates to run. That is not the way a democracy is supposed to work. Unfortunately, it’s the way things are done in New York," the Times wrote.

While the special elections will technically fill the affected seats only until the 2012 elections, the decision made in party backrooms over the past weeks are likely to have long-lasting effects, at least on the Assembly districts.

A special elections give its winner the mark of incumbency, an advantage whose effect in Assembly and State Senate races in New York can hardly be overestimated. The Citizens Union study found 26 percent of legislators in office on January 2011 had initially been chosen in special elections. In the State Assembly, 31 percent got to Albany this way.

The congressional contest stands out as an exception to that pattern. While the contest to fill Weiner's seat in Brooklyn and Queens is the marquee race for Sept. 13 whoever gets the prize will likely have to find a new job in January 2013. With New York set to lose two congressional seats in the current redistricting, Weiner's fall left his Ninth District ripe for elimination.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Election to Replace NY Rep. Anthony Weiner

Judging by vote tallies, Anthony Weiner's constituents were satisfied with his congressional service. In the most recent election, they backed him with 61% of the ballots. But he punished them with behavior that cost them both representation and seniority. Now, Gov. Cuomo should not double the penalty by handing the choice of Weiner's successor to the Queens and Brooklyn Democratic Party bosses.

It has been widely reported that voters will go to the polls in a "special election" to pick someone for the seat that Weiner is vacating. The implication is that district residents will get to consider a field of contenders. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The term "special election" has a particular meaning in New York. It signifies that the Democratic Party bosses will place one and only one candidate on the ballot and present just that person to the voters for ratification. There is another way to go about it. One that, by an accident of timing, fits expeditiously with the 2011 calendar for conducting a previously scheduled off-year election.

The procedure calls for candidates to gather ballot petition signatures, present them to the Board of Elections by July 14 and face one another in a Democratic primary on Sept. 13, followed by a Nov. 8 general election. That's what Weiner did in first running for City Council in 1991, a primary in which he won by only 200 votes. That's what Weiner did in his initial 1998 House campaign, a primary contest in which he bested the competition by fewer than 500 votes. And that is what the law allows when an elective office is vacated in New York.

Gov. Cuomo has two choices as to how he will fill The seat, and the other four seats, in the coming months: He can call a boss-driven "special election" or he can allow candidates to vie in open primaries.

No one disputes that the law gives the governor the power to go with either option. In the case of filling a vacant congressional seat, however, some argue that Article I of the U.S. Constitution ties Cuomo's hands. They point to a provision mandating that governors "shall issue Writs of Election to fill" vacancies in the House of Representatives instead of appointing a new member. They then say a) that this requires Cuomo to issue an order; b) that he can only "order" a special election; and c) that the Constitution thus bars full voter participation.

Cuomo should not insult Weiner's constituents to the benefit of bosses Joe Crowley of Queens and Vito Lopez of Brooklyn. Nor should he impose "special elections" on residents of the legislative districts where seats are vacant. The governor should give all the voters the complete say they deserve.

Even before the disgraced Democrat finished his resignation speech Thursday, elected officials and political operatives were jockeying for his congressional seat - even though it could come with an eviction notice. Redistricting could knock Weiner's Queens-Brooklyn district off the map, but it's still a seat in Congress - and at least nine Democrats and two Republicans are said to be mulling the job.

"You'd be a congressman and anything can happen if you're a congressman," said Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Queens), who said he's "not actively lobbying" for the gig but "wouldn't rule it out." "At least for the next year and a half that that seat is in existence, the district is going to need a very capable, aggressive legislator to represent the needs of the district," added Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens). "The thought of doing it is very sobering."

Other Democrats in the mix include Queens Council members Jim Gennaro - who said he'd be "an excellent candidate," but hadn't made up his mind - Elizabeth Crowley, Peter Vallone, and Mark Weprin; former Council members Melinda Katz and Eric Gioia - and a labor lawyer named Cody McCone. All have said they've been approached about the job, though none actively declared their candidacies amid uncertainty over how the seat will be filled.

Meanwhile Republicans see an opportunity. Bob Turner, the GOPer who took nearly 40% of the vote against Weiner last year is mulling a run. So is Councilman Eric Ulrich and construction worker Andrew Sullivan, who was involved in protesting a proposed mosque near Ground Zero. "The district is trending Republican and with all that's going on, I believe we have a good chance to capture that seat," said Queens Republican boss Phil Ragusa.

The other options for the Governor is to wait until the General Election to save money or since NY will lose one seat of the two seats in downstate from the 2010 Census, this seat could be eliminated. Do the Dems put in a place holder, who would want that seat? The Repubs could use this to give a new candidate exposure for future elections.

With the theme of this blog, an Open Primary were all the registered voters in this district picking their next representative is the only option for the Governor.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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