Saturday, November 13, 2010

Autumn Leaves 2010

Selected Events
[Events which request contributions are indicated by $.]
* * * * * * * * * *
18th November, 2010, Thursday at 6 P.M. N.Y. County Regular Democratic organization cocktail party. Ritz Carlton (Battery Park), Two West Str. Repondez s'il vous plait (646) 214 + 33.97. $

4th December, 2010, Saturday at noon. Samuel Tilden Democratic Club "Toys-for-Tots" fund-raiser at Paul & Jimmy's restaurant, 123 East 18th Str., Manh. Call D.L. Louise Dankberg for further info.: (212) GRamercy 5 - 53.47. $

4th December, 2010, Saturday after 5 o'clock P.M. First Saturday Night at the Brooklyn Museum o'Art. [Espied at last month's First Saturday: Judge James D'Auguste et ux Leslie and daughter Jean with Tilden Dems stalwart Esther Yang and daughter Grace.]

5th December, 2010, Sunday from 5 to 8 P.M. Three Parks Ind. Dems., Inc., holiday party. Am. Youth Hostel, Amsterdam Ave. @ W. 103rd Str., Manh. All welcome. Also, same date and same time, Chelsea "Reform" Democratic Club holiday party.Dusk Lounge, 146 W. 24th Str. (betw. 6th & 7th Aves.).

13th December, 2010, Monday, from 5 to 8 P.M. Assemblymember Linda Beth Rosenthal's holiday party. District Office, 230 W. 72nd Str., 2nd fl. (betw. B'way & W.E.A.).

14th December, 2010, Tuesday, 6:30 P.M. N.Y.C.L.A. dinner. The Waldorf Astoria. Info.: (212) COrtland 7 - 66.46, ext. 221. $

16th December, 2010, Thursday, 8 P.M. Community Free Democrats, Inc. holiday party at the Bromley, 225 W. 83rd Str., just E. off B'way. Also, same date, Park River Independent Democrats holiday fest 7 to 9 P.M., chez Loving, 164 W. 79th Str., Apt. #14-D.

Note to Clubbies: If you want me to list your club's holiday party, please let me know, thank you.
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Manhattan Judicial Inductions
Attn.: Judge Wannabees and Judicial Mavens

Your correspondent has compiled a separate complete listing of inductions of both City Civil Court Judges and State Supreme Court Justices in New York County for December 2010 and January 2011. To request a copy, please E-mail:
alphlax@yahoo.com
__________________________________________

This information is supplied as a public service, and is not an endorsement of the identified activity, candidate, charity, club, meeting, organization, or topic. All information is believed to be accurate as of the original publication date of this posting. E. & o.e.
-- 30 --
**************************************************
Now is the winter of our fiscal discontent
made glorious summer by this son of Mario.
From ALAN FLACKS at: alphlax@yahoo.com
Tele.: (212) 840+12.34
http://www.TheFlacksReport.blogspot.com/

Saturday, November 6, 2010

The Flacks Report, 8th November, 2010

George Gonzalez at the Election Board---Three Judicial Stories: Judicial mavens, these are erudite and interesting and l-o-n-g, so read them here or print them out; YOU'LL LIKE THEM---Henry Stern on Judicial Corruption---U.S. Sup. Ct. J. Stevens: An Open Mind on a Changed Court---N.Y.S. Ret. C. of A. Judge Stew Hancock

George Gonzalez at the Election Board:


http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2010/10/election_boards.php


Henry Stern on Judicial Corruption
[This is edited from a longer article.]

A recurring question which many people have asked is: Why do there appear to be so many crooks in government? Here are some thoughts on the matter: There are criminals in the private sector, as well, but their crimes are less likely to be reported by their companies and publicized by the media.

In government, there is no single authority in control, there are independently elected legislators, judges who are selected by different constituencies, authorities, boards and commissions which most people, even those in government, have never heard of. There are thousands of local districts, dealing with schools, water supply and other areas, many of which are independently elected, with most board members serving fixed terms.

There is also strong political influence in selecting government personnel and making decisions involving contracts. Those are two primary areas of legal corruption: first is maneuvering someone you control into a government job, and second is getting your catspaw to make decisions that bring economic benefit, either for your friends, your campaign committee, or clients you are paid to represent.

Crimes punishable by law are the umbra of governmental corruption; but there is a vast penumbra of unsavory actions, based on improper influence, which are not punishable in the absence of direct payment to an individual. Many businesses believe that government decisions are fixed, and do not bother to compete for them. To an unfortunate extent, their fears are well-founded, and the playing field consequently is left to thieves.

Another reason that public-sector crimes receive more attention is that in private-sector crime one person steals from another or a corporation. In the public sector, most thieves cheat the general public. We are all the victims of their wrongdoing and therefore are more outraged than when we read of some private swindle or other misdeed.

. . . The Brooklyn judiciary is a place to find criminals. In 2002, Justice Victor I. Barron was sentenced to prison for soliciting a $250,000 bribe to approve the settlement of a tort case. The judge's defense was that his request for the bribe was a symptom of dementia resulting from Alzheimer's disease or Pick's disease. The trial judge did not swallow that line, and sentenced Barron to 3 to 9 years, the longest prison sentence for an active New York judge. He ended up serving 23 months before he was granted work release for good behavior.

To resume the roll of shame, Brooklyn Surrogate Michael Feinberg was removed from the bench by the State Court of Appeals in 2005 for awarding about $9 million in legal fees to his good buddy, Louis Rosenthal. Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Gerald Garson was convicted of taking money to fix divorce cases in 2007. . . .

Justice Michael Garson, Gerald's first cousin, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor for stealing $163,000 from their elderly aunt while holding her power of attorney. He was required to resign from the bar and pay $219,000, which included interest on the money he stole from the aunt.

Justice Reynold Mason was removed from the bench in 2003 for misusing his escrow account and improperly subletting an apartment. After being disbarred, Mason became a realtor in Georgia. He was jailed for four months in 2007 by order of a New York judge for failure to support his three children. . . . Mrs. Mason had run her husband’s 1994 campaign for the Civil Court, but after he became a Supreme Court Justice he left his pregnant wife and their two children. She spent the next nine years pursuing him in court.

Another Brooklyn judge, former Assemblyman Frank Seddio, resigned from the surrogate's court bench in 2007 after coming under investigation by the Commission on Judicial Conduct. Seddio was chastised by the Daily News for allegedly violating judicial rules by making over $31,000 in campaign donations to his political allies and the Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club. He was not, however, convicted or even indicted for a crime, nor is there evidence that he received money personally. Seddio remains a powerful force in the Kings County Democratic Party. His name has frequently been mentioned in the press as a possible successor to Vito Lopez at Brooklyn County Leader if Lopez should for any reason vacate the post.

We have only written about the Brooklyn judges who were caught, because their crimes are on record.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stevens:
An Open Mind On A Changed Court

By Nina Totenberg

The U.S. Supreme Court opened its new term recently, with new Justice Elena Kagan sitting in the junior justice's seat at the far end of the bench. For the first time in its history, a third of the nine-member court is female, and all of its justices are either Catholic or Jewish — no Protestants. Also, for the first time in 35 years, Justice John Paul Stevens is not there.

The 90-year-old justice retired in June; this summer, he sat for an interview in his chambers. During a lengthy and wide-ranging conversation, Stevens said he regrets one vote: his 1976 vote to uphold the death penalty. He also said he remains undecided about whether it would be a good idea to allow TV cameras in the Supreme Court; gently chided the Senate for the way it conducts confirmation hearings; and said he has often changed his mind about issues after reading the briefs and hearing oral arguments.

To understand the arc of history Stevens has witnessed, you need only know that one of the artifacts in his office is a scorecard from the famous 1932 World Series game in which Yankees hitter Babe Ruth, playing the Chicago Cubs in their home park, pointed to center field and then hit a home run there. The blast was a blow to a 12-year-old John Paul Stevens, sitting in the stands with his father.

Nearly three-quarters of a century later, at age 85, Justice John Paul Stevens threw out the first pitch at a Cubs game.

"I used to be able to throw the ball pretty well," he said. But he quickly realized he needed to brush up his skills. He spent weeks practicing and when the big day came, "I pretended … that I was out in left field trying to get a guy out at home. It worked out fine."

A Competitor, And A Teammate
Even now, there is nothing about Stevens that suggests he is 90. He still plays singles tennis several times a week, swims, plays golf and contract bridge, and has a competitive streak belied by his gentle demeanor.

One of his colleagues recalls encountering Stevens early one morning in the Supreme Court garage. Stevens was still in his tennis clothes, and when the other justice asked how the game went, Stevens jumped up and down like a kid, declaring, "I creamed him."

That is not the kind of behavior usually seen from the Midwesterner often called "a judge's judge." Colleagues, clerks and counsel all describe him as a man of "unaffected decency," who is "unfailingly polite and gracious." So skilled is he at building relationships on the court that other justices have said they would like to bottle his talent. During the interview in his chambers, he chuckled about the notion that he is some sort of great tactician.

"There's no grand strategy or anything like that; it's just part of the way I think judges should work together on a multi-judge court," he said. "One of the things that makes this a nice place to work is the custom of shaking hands before you go on the bench. It's a funny thing that that very minor ceremony starts everybody off in a collegial manner, and it stays right there."

Unlike many court commentators, Stevens does not attribute political motives to colleagues with whom he disagrees. "The wonderful thing about this institution is that we do disagree about very profound things," he says, but every justice "accepts the fact that his or her colleagues are doing the best job they can consistent with their own understanding of the law and the Constitution."

That doesn't mean that Stevens and his antagonists on the court have disdained strong language. In January, when a new conservative majority struck down a 100-year-old ban on corporate spending in candidate elections, Stevens wrote in dissent that the court's decision would "cripple the ability of ordinary citizens, Congress and the States to adopt even limited measures to protect against corporate domination of the electoral process."

In 2008, when the court, including Stevens, declared that detainees at Guantanamo have a constitutional right to judicial review of their detentions, Justice Antonin Scalia, in dissent, said the majority opinion "will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

With a tiny twinkle in his eye, Stevens says that Scalia "has written a number of opinions in which he has made very seriously dire predictions about what would happen, and I think by and large those things did not happen."

A Fundamental Dispute
Stevens and Scalia have gone at each other on many subjects, but their core disagreement is over Scalia's espousal of originalism — the idea that the Founding Fathers intended the Constitution to mean only what it meant at the time of enactment, no more and no less. Or, as Scalia puts it, "the Constitution that I interpret and apply is not living, but dead."

Stevens disagrees. "To suggest that the law is static is quite wrong," he says. Stevens argues that "the whole purpose was to form a more perfect union, not something that's perfect when we started. We designed a system of government that would contemplate a change and progress."

This clash of views is exemplified in a 1990 opinion Stevens wrote, which invalidated the Illinois patronage system as a violation of employees' First Amendment rights to freedom of association.

Stevens notes that when he first encountered the question, he thought the claim had no merit. After all, as Justice Scalia would subsequently observe, patronage existed at the time the republic was founded. But Stevens, upon examining the question, reached a conclusion exactly opposite of what he originally thought.

"It did persuade me that some things that have been part of our law for a long, long time are not necessarily correct interpretation of the Constitution," he said. "The best example of that, of course, is racial discrimination. ... But the patronage system, it seemed to me, was a misuse of government power; the government has a duty to act impartially."

In his nearly 35 years as a justice, Stevens authored some 400 majority opinions for the court on almost every issue imaginable — from national security and Guantanamo to immigration; from abortion to obscenity; from school prayer to campaign finance reform; from term limits to the relationship between the federal and state governments.

During his tenure, he was seen as an increasingly respected and influential justice, a man beloved by his colleagues for his decency, his unassuming nature, and his tough inner core. Appointed by President Ford, Stevens was labeled a moderate conservative in his first decade. But by the time he retired, Stevens was seen as the court's most liberal member. So did he change or did the court?

"I think primarily the court has changed," says Stevens, referring to the composition of the court. But he acknowledges that on some issues, his views have changed as he has "learned more."

Debating The Death Penalty
Both the change in Stevens and the change in the court are illustrated by the issue of the death penalty. When he first joined the court, he voted to revive capital punishment, overturning a de facto moratorium imposed by the court four years earlier.

"I thought at the time ... that if the universe of defendants eligible for the death penalty is sufficiently narrow so that you can be confident that the defendant really merits that severe punishment, that the death penalty was appropriate," he says. But, over the years, "the court constantly expanded the cases eligible for the death penalty, so that the underlying premise for my vote has disappeared, in a sense."

In short, as moderate conservatives retired and were replaced by more hard-line conservative justices, the court changed the rules, he says. "Not only is it a larger universe, but the procedures have become more prosecution-friendly."

The court, he notes, has become more permissive in allowing prosecutors to object to seating jurors who have qualms about the death penalty. The result is that instead of getting a random sample of jurors, jury panels are more supportive of the death penalty. In addition, the court now allows the relatives of crime victims to testify during the penalty phase of a capital trial. These so-called victim impact statements were once ruled too incendiary to be permissible, but four years later, a more conservative court reversed the decision. All of this, says Justice Stevens, has changed the nature of the death penalty as he and the court envisioned it in the 1970s.

These subsequent decisions tend to "load the dice in favor of the prosecution and against the defendant," Stevens says. "I really think that the death penalty today is vastly different from the death penalty that we thought we were authorizing. And I think if the procedures had been followed that we expected to be in place, I think I probably would've still had the same views." Namely, he would have continued to favor a narrowly circumscribed death penalty.

Instead, he views his vote to uphold capital punishment in 1976 as the one he regrets during his tenure. It is "the one vote I would change," he says. Calling the decision "incorrect," Stevens says the 1976 court "did not foresee how it would be interpreted."

Father's Brush With The Law
Justice Stevens disavows the notion that his concern for the rights of criminal defendants might stem from his own family's experience. His father, who built and ran what was then the largest hotel in Chicago, was prosecuted for embezzlement and convicted. Facing 10 years in prison, he was subsequently exonerated by the Illinois Supreme Court, which unanimously reversed the conviction, declaring that the alleged crime was a mistaken investment and that there was "not one scintilla of evidence of concealment or fraud."

Stevens acknowledges that he has thought about whether this experience affected his views. But, he adds, "I don't really think it had any impact whatsoever on me, to tell you the truth."

His voice cracking with emotion, Stevens continues: "And the reason I say that is that at the time I never really considered it being a realistic possibility that he would ever go to jail. Because I knew the kind of man that he was. He simply was not capable of either a dishonest or dishonorable act."

Indeed, Stevens says, after the decision, he still planned a career teaching English, and only changed his mind years later.

A Contrarian With An Open Mind
Stevens is feisty in defending both his majority opinions and some of his famous dissents, as well. Flag-burning? He still thinks the court was wrong to strike down a law making flag desecration a crime. Bush v. Gore? He still thinks the court overstepped its authority and should have left the recount to the state of Florida.

As for the court's recent ruling allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts on candidate elections, Stevens thinks it was dead wrong — and, indeed, still doesn't think that money is the same thing as speech. "Can you hear it talk? Can you read it? [Money is] simply not speech," he says. "And I have to confess that my own views are that there is an interest in trying to have any debate conducted according to fair rules that treat both sides with an adequate opportunity to express their view. We certainly wouldn't, in our arguments in this court, give one side a little more time because they could pay higher fees to hire their lawyers, or something like that."

But Stevens still has not made up his mind about one Supreme Court issue: whether the court should allow television cameras to record and broadcast the arguments.

On the plus side, he says, "I think you develop more respect for the court when you see it — how it actually handles oral arguments — and you see that the justices are prepared and have thought about the problems and so forth."

But introducing television into a new forum can often have "an adverse impact on the process," Stevens says, pointing to Senate confirmation hearings for judges as an example. Ultimately, he says, "I think there is a very serious risk that if you introduce television into the Supreme Court arguments, it may have an unintended consequence that we really don't foresee right now."

A Different Approach
One of the hard things to fathom about a justice who is Stevens' age is how he discards the beliefs he grew up with when other, younger justices do not. Nearly a quarter-century ago, when the Supreme Court upheld a Georgia law that made it a crime for homosexuals to engage in consenting sexual conduct in the privacy of their homes, Stevens was among the dissenters.

When he joined the court, Stevens says, he didn't have any friends whom he knew to be gay, but he knew the first time he saw the issue that it was a tough call. When the court upheld anti-sodomy laws in 1986, Stevens dissented. Seventeen years later, he was part of the court majority that reversed that ruling.

"It's just part of the job where you take the cases one at a time," he says, "and I have found very often, I'm surprised [that] the result I come out with is not necessarily what I assumed in advance."

For Stevens, writing the first drafts of his opinions himself, instead of delegating the task to law clerks as many of his colleagues do, helped with that process. In writing it out, Stevens says, "your reasoning will either make sense or it won't. And if it doesn't, you change your vote, or you change your whole approach."

After the first draft was done, he would give it to his law clerks. "Their job is to prevent me from looking like an idiot," he says with a laugh.

The law clerks checked Stevens' facts and sometimes made only minor changes. But on other occasions, they rewrote his draft entirely — a rewrite that he sometimes embraced in whole or part, and sometimes rejected — in the nicest way possible, of course.

The important thing, Stevens says, is that in examining a question, he often changes his mind. What at first blush may look like a simple case with an easy answer turns out to be something quite different — a point, he observes, that seems to be lost at Senate confirmation hearings.

"The senators sort of expect the new nominee to know all the answers now," he says. "But this is a job in which you get briefs from lawyers, and you start out with sort of an expectation of being taught a little bit about the issues before you have to decide. And there's an awful lot you learn on almost every case. You don't know all the answers when you start. And if you think you do, you're kidding yourself."

So, is Stevens sad to have left the court?
"I'm both happy and sad," he says. "I have mixed feelings about it, because I know I'll miss the work. I really, really love the job. But I'm also looking forward to having not so many deadlines to meet."

N.Y.S. Ret. Court of Appeals Judge Stew Hancock

Ready for Anything:
At 87, Stew Hancock’s legal expertise remains in demand.


By John O’Brien, staff writer, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Sunday, 19 Sept. 2010

Stew Hancock liked the knottiest cases when he sat on the state’s highest court.

He had an appetite on the Court of Appeals for wading into such complexities as the difference between a catamaran and a monohull in the America’s Cup yacht race.

Nearly two decades later, at the age of 87, Hancock still loves a legal brainteaser. How about figuring out who should recover the debentures — something like bonds — being fought over by a company in New York and a company in Indonesia for property in Singapore?

When Hancock hit the court’s mandatory retirement age of 70 in 1993, he was worried he’d end up sitting in the corner of a law office doing a crossword puzzle, with a senior partner whispering to a subordinate, “For God’s sake, go ask him something!” Instead, Hancock’s been preoccupied with puzzles of another sort. At an age when most people are kicking back, he’s still rocking the scales of justice.

His legal mind has been in demand across the globe. During the past few years, Hancock has testified in London three or four times, in Paris twice and once in the Hague as the last word on New York law. As an international arbitrator, he’s sat in judgment on complex commercial cases from all over.

It takes him longer to get up a flight of stairs, and he no longer goes on his daily run. Nor does he stand on his head the way he used to do in his office, to get the juices flowing. He still does 40 push-ups a day.

Hancock moved in January 2009 from his downtown office with the law firm of Hancock & Estabrook, to an office with Mitchell, Goris, & Stokes just off Main Street in Cazenovia. He wanted a five-minute walk to work instead of a 45-minute drive, he said. He maintains a friendly relationship with the firm named after his grandfather.

Hancock puts in a full day nearly every weekday, and often comes in on weekends. He cross-country skis to work in the winter and walks in the summer, along a pathway by a creek.

His new officemates say it’s an honor to have a former Court of Appeals judge right down the hall — especially one who revels in lawyerly camaraderie. “It’s like being with Mickey Mantle, ” lawyer Patrick O’Sullivan said.

Hancock’s contemporary, former Court of Appeals Judge Richard Simons, of Rome, is 83 years old and also still works as a lawyer — but not nearly as much as Hancock. “I’m not amazed, ” Simons said of Hancock’s continued workload. “But I’m jealous.”

Hancock’s love of a challenge has led him during the past 15 years to cases that would seem to put him at odds with the position of his Republican Party. He became in the late 1990s an oft-quoted expert on why the death penalty was unconstitutional under New York state law. He handled the appeal of a man convicted of causing the death of a state trooper. And for years he’s volunteered to represent poor people for free through the Hiscock Legal Aid Society.

Has old age turned him from a conservative former chairman of Onondaga County’s Republican Party to a liberal? He acknowledges leaning more to the left, but not that far. “It was a process of learning more, studying more, maturing, ” Hancock said.

Hancock agreed to handle the appeal of James Carncross at the request of Carncross’ grandmother, who lives in Cazenovia. Carncross was convicted of causing the death of Trooper Craig Todeschini in 2006 by speeding away on his motorcycle. Todeschini pursued, then crashed his state police vehicle. When Hancock argued the case before the Court of Appeals in February, he frequently patted the podium with an open hand as he made his point. In an apparent effect of his age, he had trouble hearing the judges at times. Wearing a bow tie, he appeared to never look at his notes. It's a result of the way he prepares, running through mock arguments as many times as he can.

He got politely confrontational with one of the judges sitting on Hancock's former bench. "If I may finish a sentence?" Hancock asked after being cut off by the judge.

The court ruled against Carncross, who is serving up to seven years in prison. Hancock is trying to get a federal judge to review the case. Hancock got started in his opposition to the death penalty law in 1995, after he assigned his class at Syracuse University's law school to take a side and write on it. He collaborated with one student, Alycia Ziarno, and his former law clerk, Annelle McCullough, on an article for the Albany Law Review that said the law was racially and geographically biased.
Hancock went on to assist Albany lawyer Terence Kindlon on a death penalty case.

"It was a chance for him to work in the vineyard, " Kindlon said. Years before, Kindlon had become a fan of Hancock's for a precedent-setting decision the judge wrote that said the state constitution provided greater protection for people than the U.S. constitution. Ziarno worked with Hancock on two friend-of-the-court briefs on other death penalty cases. She remembers him writing out the briefs in longhand on a yellow legal pad. One was 187 pages, and he sometimes spent a half-hour on one word, worrying over the inferences people might draw from it, she said.

Hancock still teaches a class to third-year law students at SU called Problem Analysis and Appellate Advocacy. When he started his most recent semester last month, he told his students he hoped to break them out of the mentality that law school necessarily creates: that of people who manipulate the machinery of the law and have lost their common sense.
"I intend to turn you back into human beings, " Hancock told the class.
Hancock's wife, Ruth, says her husband has always buried himself in his work because he loves it so much. It's also probably his way of hiding from the world at times, she said. That may have been the case after a devastating setback Jan. 15, 2009 -- the day his 58-year-old son, Stewart Hancock III, committed suicide.

Young Stew, former publisher of Eagle Newspapers, was always watching out for his father, making sure he kept appointments and sent thank-you notes, Ruth Hancock said. The judge gave a eulogy at the funeral, saying no one could ask for a better son. He's rarely talked about young Stew's death, Ruth said, but he left her a card on the one-year anniversary. He wrote that they needed to do more for others, in young Stew's memory, Ruth said.

Hancock's colleagues say he's been doing that for years. In a Law Day speech last month in Auburn, he urged lawyers to take on the cases of poor people for free. In that speech, he did what he often does: make fun of himself. He said he was forced to retire as a judge because of the Rule of Statutory Senility. At midnight on Dec. 31 of the year a judge turns 70, he or she instantly becomes senile, according to the fictional rule. "But there is no prohibition against the judge's -- senile or not -- being a lawyer again, " he said. "The implications of this I leave to you."

************************************************************
Now is the winter of our fiscal discontent
made glorious summer by this son of Mario.
From ALAN FLACKS at: alphlax@yahoo.com
Tele.: (212) 840+12.34
http://www.TheFlacksReport.blogspot.com/

November 2010 Selected Events

[Events which request contributions are indicated by $.]

6th November, 2010, Saturday, beginning at 5 P.M. First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum. Look at:

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/

18th November, 2010, Thursday at 6 P.M. N.Y. County Regular Democratic organization cocktail party. Ritz Carlton (Battery Park), Two West Str. Repondez s'il vous plait (646) 214 + 33.97. $

4th December, 2010, Saturday at noon. Samuel Tilden Democratic Club "Toys-for-Tots" fund-raiser at Paul & Jimmy's restaurant, 123 East 18th Str., Manh. Call D.L. Louise Dankberg for further info.: (212) GRamercy 5 - 53.47. $

5th December, 2010, Sunday from 5 to 8 P.M. Three Parks Ind. Dems., Inc., holiday party. Am. Youth Hostel, Amsterdam Ave. @ W. 103rd Str., Manh. All welcome.

14th December, 2010, Tuesday, 6:30 P.M. N.Y.C.L.A. dinner. The Waldorf Astoria. Info.: (212) COrtland 7 - 66.46, ext. 221. $

16th December, 2010, Thursday. Induction of and reception for Kelly Anne O'Neill Levy at the Civil Courthouse, 111 Centre Str., Manh. followed by the annual holiday party of her Club, C.F.D., at the Bromley.
_______________________________________

This information is supplied as a public service, and is not an endorsement of the identified activity, candidate, charity, club, meeting, organization, or topic. All information is believed to be accurate as of the original publication date of this posting. E. & o.e.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Upper West Side's Power Depends on Democratic Vote for Governor

Upper West Side's Power Depends on Democratic Vote for Governor on Tues., November 2nd, 2010.

By Joan Paylo, Dem. District Leader from Community Free Democrats, Inc.

[This article originally appeared in the C.F.D. newsletter and has been edited to eliminate local references.]

The number of votes that are cast for Governor on the Democratic Line at pollsites on the Upper West Side on November 2 will determine clubs' actual voting power for the next four years. It's that simple. We must all vote on the Democratic Line, and persuade our neighbors to do the same.

If people vote for Cuomo on any other party's ballot line, including the Working Families Party line, it will weaken our influence in what could be crucial votes locally and even statewide. In fact, because some local voters thought it would be nice to vote "for the same candidates anyway" on the WFP line, we in the 67th and 69th ADs lost some power within the party, in terms of weighted votes, last time around.

State and County Democratic Party rules weight a district's votes, based on the number of Democratic votes cast for Governor every four years. This weighting has consequences in the following instances:

1. County Committee votes when filling a vacancy for the US House of Representatives, State Senate and State Assembly. Each Election District, often just a square block, has 2, 3, or 4 County Committee members. Many of you are on County Committee, the true grassroots of the Party.

2. State Committee votes at nominating conventions for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller and US Senator. State Committee is comprised of a male and a female member from each of the state's 150 Assembly Districts.

3. Supreme Court Justice nominations. As you know, delegates to the Judicial Nominating Convention are elected in the September Primary each year.

First, let's take a frank look at County Committee weighting. If, for any reason, one of our members of Congress, the State Senate, or the Assembly should not complete his or her term, the weighting of the County Committee delegation becomes all-important.

In 1992, Congressman Ted Weiss died in office, the day before the September Primary. At least a half dozen, if not a dozen, talented and qualified candidates put their names forward to replace him. Hundreds of County Committeemembers from each and every tiny Election District (ED) in the entire Congressional District met in a Convention and voted for Assemblyman Jerry Nadler to replace Weiss as the Democratic Party's nominee. It helped Jerry that the EDs supporting him had substantial weighting when votes were tallied at the Convention, because votes weren't tallied according to how many Committeemembers there were in an ED. The votes were tallied proportionally, based on how many people in each particular ED had voted for Governor on the Democratic Line in the last gubernatorial election. The same happened when candidates "ran" for the nomination to replace Jerry in the Assembly. Scott Stringer won the Democratic nomination, as did Linda Rosenthal when Scott vacated his Assembly seat to become Borough President in 2005.

That's power, derived, in part, from the number of people who voted for Governor on the Democratic Line in CFD territory. Voters can even be registered in other parties.

The same goes for State Committee. Those of us who made the trip to the Democratic Nominating Convention in Westchester County in May kvelled at the proportional voting weight that our Committeemembers from the 67th and 69th ADs carried, especially when the roll call vote for nominating Attorney General took place. The votes cast for Eric Schneiderman by Debra Cooper, Arthur Greig, Larry Hirsch and Lynn Thomas counted for more than votes cast by, say, some upstate AD that may have covered two or three counties!

Yet our State Committeemembers will tell you that their weighting has dropped somewhat in recent years because not everyone chooses to vote for Governor on the Democratic Line.

The number of delegates that an Assembly District sends to the County Judicial Nominating Convention also depends on the vote for Governor on the Democratic Line.

In my third year as Democratic District Leader, I spent a good deal of Election Day 2006 outside PS 163, the largest polling site in Manhattan, where people from Park West Village and former Mitchell-Lamas vote. For weeks I'd been writing and distributing building letters and talking up our candidates at street fairs and on street corners. As a dutiful Democratic District Leader, I had worked hard to find good workers to staff the polls. My peeps were really pumped to vote for Eliot Spitzer for Governor for a long list of reasons, especially to have a strong Democrat to dethrone George Pataki and build a Democratic majority in the Albany Senate. CFDers, out for much of the day, worked as hard as we could to hand out our palm cards and greet our neighbors by name.

But up the block, a larger number of paid workers coming in shifts from the WFP were also handing out their palm cards and talking to voters. I was devastated when so many of my "peeps" came out of the polls, smiled at me and say, "Don't worry I voted for your man!" Then they said, innocently, that they had voted on the WFP line. We had failed to explain why voting for Spitzer wasn't enough; that voting for him on OUR line was all-important. Our peeps had been picked off.

In those days of the Washington entrenchment of George Bush, voting with "working families" made an emotional statement for many Westsiders. It's true that the WFP must get 50,000 votes statewide to remain an official party, as they've been since 1998. The WFP has a point when they contend that Upstate and out on Long Island, people vote for "Working Families" who would never pull a Democratic Lever. But I want us to act locally, NOT globally here. In 2006, the WFP received 155,000, three times what they needed. THIS year, I believe, we grassroots Dems on the Upper West Side need some of those votes back.

I consider the WFP and the unions who support them my strong allies on every day but one, and that is Election Day every four years when the governorship is up for grabs.

This is my mantra: Vote for Andrew Cuomo for Governor on the Democratic Line.

Almost Half of Judge Candidates Unqualified to Run, Says N.Y.C. Bar Assn.

By Elizabeth Dwoskin, Village Voice "blog" on Friday, October 29th, 2010.

​Nearly half the candidates running for city judgeships in this year's general election on November 2 are unqualified to run, the New York City Bar Association said yesterday. Of the 34 candidates running in the Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, 15 are unqualified by the Bar's reckoning (There are no vacancies in Staten Island).

Judge candidates don't need Bar approval to run or to win, and as we showed in a cover story (see the image) last year, even "unqualified" candidates can turn out to be effective judges.

Still, the Bar's not high on many of this year's crop. In Brooklyn, the Bar says both candidates running for Civil Court are unqualified. Of the nine candidates running for Kings County Supreme Court, six are considered unqualified.

Former JP Morgan exec and GOP gubernatorial hopeful Rick Lazio was found to be qualified to run for Bronx County Supreme Court.

The Bar Association's annual list of ratings for local judicial candidates is serious business. After the candidates fill out a detailed questionnaire and submit it to a panel of 50 lawyers, the panel investigates the candidate through telephone interviews with "references, adversaries, and other appropriate contacts." The Bar also "reviews writing samples and researches any past disciplinary actions."

Check if a judge running in your borough gets a seal of approval from the City Bar:

Bronx County

Supreme Court

Rick A. Lazio - Approved
Thomas V. Ognibene - Not approved
Edgar G. Walker - Approved

Civil Court (1st District)

Joseph E. Capella - Approved

Civil Court (2nd District)

Linda Poust Lopez - Approved
Daniel Szalkiewicz - Not approved


Kings County

Supreme Court

Sylvia G. Ash - Approved
James P. Domagalski - Not approved
Deborah A. Dowling - Approved
Elon Harpaz - Not approved
Francois A. Rivera - Not approved
Kenneth D. Schaeffer - Not approved
Giovanni P. Silvagni - Not approved
Jeffrey S. Sunshine - Approved
Amy S. Young - Not approved

Civil Court (Countywide)

Vincent F. Martusciello - Not approved
Harriet L. Thompson - Not approved

Civil Court (7th District)

Betty Williams - Approved

New York County

Supreme Court

Karin M. Burke - Not approved
Matthew F. Cooper - Approved
George G. Janis - Not approved
Cynthia S. Kern - Approved
Jodi A. Mosiello - Not approved
Jeffrey K. Oing - Approved

Civil Court (Countywide)

David B. Cohen - Approved
Michael L. Katz - Approved
Leticia M. Ramirez - Approved

Civil Court (1st District)

Carol R. Feinman - Approved
Joan M. Kenney - Not approved

Civil Court (5th District)

Kelly O'Neill Levy - Approved

Civil Court (9th District)

Gerald Lebovits - Approved

Queens County

Surrogate's Court

Peter J. Kelly - Approved

Civil Court (Countywide)

Dennis Lebwohl - Not approved
Barry A. Schwartz - Approved

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