On April 30, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo released the text of a proposed election law bill he hopes the legislature will pass. The proposal is identified as “Legislative Bill Drafting Commission 12024-02-3″, or as “Governor’s Program Bill #4.” The bill, if enacted, would allow anyone to run in any party’s primary, regardless of whether the candidate is a member of that party or not, and regardless of what party officers think Read more »
For Immediate Release – The Reform Party of the United States of America affiliates in New York and Utah are currently petitioning for ballot access. No Reform Party affiliate has successfully petitioned for access since the 2004 election cycle. Currently it is on the ballot in Florida and Louisiana, two states that do not require petitions for access. Read more »
(SYRACUSE) Members of the newly formed Green Shadow Cabinet, an independent voice in U.S. politics representing the views of super majorities of the American people that are ignored by the corporate duopoly, will be participating in this weekend’s anti-drones convergence in Syracuse NY called “Resisting Drones, Global War and Empire,” April 26th – 28th. This event has also been endorsed by the Green Party of Read more »
The New York City Independence Party has issued recommendations for election law changes in New York state. See them here. The party recommends that the Wilson-Pakula Law be repealed for large political parties such as the Democratic and Republican Parties, but preserved for smaller qualified parties. The Wilson-Pakula law gives party county chairs the power to decide whether a non-member of a party may run in Read more »
Katrina vanden Heuvel has this article in The Nation, defending fusion. It also misleading says that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to eliminate fusion. However, as one of the commenters points out, Governor Cuomo does not want to end fusion. He just wants to make it possible for any candidate to run in any party’s primary. Thanks to Gene Berkman for the link. Read more »
The New York Times has this story about Governor Andrew Cuomo’s proposal to eliminate the Wilson-Pakula law. The article is badly titled. The name of the article is “A bid to limit each candidate to one ballot line is stirring debate.” Actually the article does not mention one person or group who is advocating eliminating fusion, although the article does quote one political science professor who hints that would be a good idea. Read more »
Since 1947, New York state has restricted the ability of outsider candidates to run in party primaries. Outsiders can run in a party primary, but only if party leaders approve letting any particular non-member candidate run in that party’s primary. This restriction is called the Wilson-Pakula law.
Virtually all public offices in New York are partisan, so there are thousands of Read more »
On April 16, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo asked the state legislature to repeal the Wilson-Pakula law, which gives county political party leaders the power to decide whether to let non-member candidates run in party primaries. If that law were repealed, any candidate could run in any party’s primary ballot, or in the primary of several parties, no matter what the county chair of the party thinks. Read more »
