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New York GOP Chair Wants to Start Third Party

By Trent Hill on June 30, 2010 1:37 PM

Ed Cox, the chairman of the Republican Party of New York, is reportedly interested in creating a third party to be used to help New York Republicans to win elections.

A Republican source tells me that state GOP chairman Ed Cox let party chairs know last week that he’s moving forward with a bid to create his own third-party ballot line for Republicans.

Cox informed county chairs and vice-chairs on two calls last week that this was the plan, atthough I’m not yet clear on how this will work given the number of primaries on the statewide Republican ticket. From the sound of it, he’s planning to throw all the candidates in the various primaries on the line.

Cox and executive director Tom Basile has also called the statewide candidates’ campaigns trying to gauge support for the idea, a source said, but made clear it’s what they want to do.

Cox has repeatedly pointed out that there is a precedent for this, noting George Pataki’s own third-party line creation in 1994. However, this is slightly unusual in that it’s the chairman of an established party doing it.

I also understand some campaigns have concerns about the logistics of this move.

I have a call into the state GOP but so far haven’t heard back.

UPDATE: A GOP source fills me in on some of the details as they exist so far.

The source insists the goal of this is not, as was the clear impression  made on many of the county chairs briefed on this possibility back at the GOP convention, to siphon votes off from the Conservative Party.

The state committee is still fleshing this out, and there is no name or logo for this ballot line yet, which will require 15,000 signatures to secure a spot.

They have not yet had any candidate say “no,” and most have said “yes,” apparently. The idea would not be to throw all the candidates on the line – I didn’t understand how that would even be possible – but instead the designee of each party would be put on.

But there would be a committee on vacancies established, and all the designees have agreed to name their primary opponent as their successor if they should lose the GOP primary. They would then step off the line and give the winner their slot.

The idea is also to have county petition-carriers circulate these starting July 6, the first day it becomes legal to do it. But circulating petitions is an expensive effort, and it’s not immediately clear how it will work in terms of reimbursements from the state commitee, which is not swimming in cash by all accounts.

More on the story as it develops.

9 Comments

  1. Jeremy Young July 2, 2010

    Richard Winger, amazing — somehow I hadn’t heard about that. He moved away from the state and was STILL forced to be on the ballot? Wow.

  2. Steve July 1, 2010

    Assuming the Republicans qualify this party for the ballot, how easy would it be to take over and use against Republicans, a la Connecticut for Lieberman?

  3. Eric Sundwall June 30, 2010

    This is simply a ploy to reject Lazio by Cox. He stumbled hard with the Levy gambit.

    It’s also a stark admission that his own product in NY is extremely flawed. The party membership ought to reject this for principle’s sake. Apparently years of abuse with fusion has really taken a toll.

  4. pete healey June 30, 2010

    “He was also the only WFP congressional nominee who was not also a Democratic nominee anywhere in the nation.” I’ve been involved in a local dispute with a WFP activist who swears insistently that she’s a “third party activist” and I call that claim hogwash.

  5. Richard Winger June 30, 2010

    But Powers moving to Washington DC had no legal effect. The federal courts said he was still eligible, because Article I of the US Constitution only has a residency requirement for candidates for Congress on election day, not before election day. Powers polled 12,103 votes, 4.48%, in November. He was the only Working Families Party congressional nominee who was not also a Democratic nominee anywhere in the nation.

  6. Jeremy Young June 30, 2010

    The process explained in the update is not entirely accurate. According to New York state law, candidates cannot simply withdraw from a party’s nomination after they’ve been nominated and endorse someone else. The only ways to get one’s name off a ballot line after one has been nominated are: to die, to move out of state (and become ineligible to serve), or to be nominated for a federal judgeship.

    This became an issue in the 2008 Democratic congressional primary in NY-26, where Alice Kryzan scored a surprising victory in a three-way primary. The Working Families Party had nominated Kryzan’s opponent Jon Powers, thinking that Kryzan had no chance to win the primary and that the third candidate was unacceptable. Kryzan, Powers, and the WFP all wanted Powers’ name off the ballot, but in order to make this happen Powers actually had to move to Washington, DC — ending his political career in the process.

  8. Anonymous June 30, 2010

    Why not contact him and make the party line the Conservative Green Party?

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