The Gothamist has this article by Ross Barkan, pointing out that New York state courts have ruled three times that the state constitution does not allow the state to outlaw fusion, unless the state constitution is changed. The decisions of the highest state court on that subject were in 1910, 1911, and 1973.
A commission in New York has been empowered by the legislature to implement public funding of campaigns for state office, and also to ban fusion. But of course the commission can’t ban fusion if the state constitution guarantees fusion.
FUSION –
ONE MORE DISTRACTION FROM THE ANTI-DEMOCRACY MINORITY RULE GERRYMANDERS IN NY STATE.
PR IN ALL LEGIS BODY ELECTIONS.
Progressives run New York. They have about as much respect for state constitutions as they have for the US Constitution — which is NONE.
They really believe that laws and even constitutions don’t apply to them.
Two of the decisions weren’t really saying that fusion was legal, but rather overturned laws.
In New York, there were party columns. At one time NY had straight ticket voting. But there was a law that said that a candidate that was multiply nominated would only show up in the party column of the first party (remember NY vote columns are ordered by the prior gubernatorial vote).
So the Republican column would have
Freddy Fusion ( )
And the Independence League column would have
See Column A
The straight ticket option would not even pick Freddy.
The 1973 decision involved an independent body. In New York independent nominations are said to be by an independent body, but are entitled to use a label. Only if the gubernatorial candidate gets 50,000 votes can a party be formed.
Independent bodies don’t get a party column and their candidates are in Column N (for Neptune).
The bill said that if a candidate was nominated by a party and an independent body, they would not appear as the independent candidate.
In that instance candidates had been nominated by the Republican Party and some other party.
Only the first might have been said to uphold the right to fusion.
Apparently at the time there was a distinction between nomination by convention and nomination by committee. The first New York primary was in 1914. The decision said you couldn’t restrict who a party nominated.
Of course there is no reason to grant a party nomination rights, let alone their own ballot line.
You are probably misinterpreting the new statute. A New York court could reasonably claim that the issues are not ripe.
As part of its budget, New York has set aside $100 million for a public campaign financing. The legislature could not determine how to administer the money, so created a commission whose regulations will have the force of statute.
Among the rules would be candidate eligibility for public financing; political party qualifications; and multiple party candidate nominations and/or designation.
For example is Cynthia Nixon candidate for gubernatorial nomination by the Working Families Party different than Cynthia Nixon candidate for gubernatorial nomination by the Democratic Party; or Cynthia Nixon Working Families candidate for the legislature so that the party could give its gubernatorial nomination to Andrew Cuomo.
Would the campaign funds be segregated? Would any of the funds go to political parties?
NY CONST LANGUAGE ON *FUSION* ???
TOO BUSY TO LOOK IT UP.
Since the *modern* election law perversions of the USA 1 Amdt since 1968 —
parties/factions/fractions have *right* to nominate ANY body — 1 Amdt association stuff.
BUT as noted in one of the stories–
1997 Supreme Court case, Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, that affirmed a Minnesota law barring candidates of one party from appearing on the ballot of another.
New Age stuff changed since 1997 ???
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On to next moron issue.
@DR,
Would you like to read the 1910 decision?
The issue was whether the second nomination was made in accordance with statute. The Republican Party _convention_ had nominated three judges. A _committee_ of the Independence League (see William Randolph Hearst) had nominated the same candidates. The Democratic Party challenged the IL nomination.
The SOS rejected the challenge and the Democrats sued. A lower court ruled in favor of accepting the nomination, saying that the statute in question had been interpreted previously by courts in the same way, and that had been acquiesced in.
The Court of Appeals of New York (the supreme court in New York) issued its opinion on appeal, upholding the lower court.
Judge (sic) Gray in his opinion agreed with the lower court, upholding past practice. Chief Judge (sic) Cullen said that he could go along with that, but that he would go further and base it on the right to vote.
He also opined that the legislature could require nomination by convention (or presumably by primary, though New York did not have the primary until 1914).
Judge Chase concurred with Cullen. Judge Hissock concurred with Gray. Judges Werner and Bartlett concurred with both opinions. Judge Haight dissented and would use a legalistic statute construction.
Arguably, Cullen’s opinion was dicta. Had the statute clearly expressed the manner of concurrent nomination, the IL would have used that method. Had they invented some alternative method and then sued to have their purported nomination take effect, they would have been laughed out of court.
In that sense the decisions did not rest on outlawing fusion is unconstitutional; but rather when concurrent nomination is permitted it must be done in a non-discriminatory fashion.
New York statute provided for fusion. The case
JR – JUST POST THE NY CONST LANGUAGE WHICH ALLEGEDLY ***REQUIRES*** *FUSION*.
HOW OFTEN DOES NY CT APP [SUPCT] OVER-RULE EARLIER MORON OPS ??? —
LIKE SCOTUS REGULARLY DOES OF ITS EARLIER MORON OPS.
@DR,
It would be be better for you to read the 1910 decision, assuming you wish to be informed.
Too much JUNK in too many election law court ops to look at — basically a total waste of time —
since Lincoln’s SCOTUS HACKS in 1861.
Nonstop worse and worse ANTI-Democracy LAWLESS TYRANT monarchs – Prezs, Guvs, Mayors, etc. —
with worse and worse stooge/hack *judges*.
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SAVE Democracy REFORMS NOW – For starters —
PR and nonpartisan AppV and TOTSOP