August 19 is the petition deadline for New York independent candidates, and the nominees of unqualified parties, for state office. Here is a link to the petitions filed for the November ballot. It seems likely that there will be seven candidates on the November ballot for Governor: Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo; Republican Rob Astorino Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins; Libertarian Michael McDermott; the nominee of the Sapient Party, Steven Cohn; Jimmy McMillan of the Rent is 2 Damn High Party; and Michael Carey of the Life & Justice Party..
The major party primaries are in September, so there is no absolute certainty that Cuomo will be the Democratic nominee. His Democratic opponent Zephyr Teachout has a strong campaign.
Here is the Sapient Party’s web page. The national chair is New Yorker Bobby Kumar Kalotee. In 2010 he was associated with a group that petitioned for New York statewide office as the Tea Party, but it did not get on the ballot. In 2008 he held himself out as the national chair of the Reform Party, and endorsed John McCain for president.
Here is a newspaper story about the Life & Justice Party. The party wants to make abortion illegal and wants changes in how disabled persons are treated. This post has been re-written to include the McMillan and Carey candidacies, whose filings had not been posted on the New York State Board of Elections webpage when the original post was written.
The Sapient Party has an interesting name…
Thank you for sharing Mark. http://www.lifeandjustice.org/
Well, at least they did something good once.
RTL was very active in the 90’s, and a co-plaintiff with us and the Green Party in an important federal lawsuit in the very early 2000’s that resulted in people being able to register RTL, LP or GP even if they are not official “parties” under NY Election Law.
Thereafter, it pretty much went silent.
Sounds like a lot of alt party operations.
Trent: The NY RTL Party was a pretty tightly-controlled group: about 6-8 people ran it for years. All were very devoted and pretty savvy, but time took its toll on the founders, there were some ego differences, and the very hard NY ballot access laws made it impossible to go on. Some RTL Party activists may be involved in the new Life and Justice Party.
Awesome!
I’ve been surprised that the Right to Life party never experienced a juvenaton in New York. Not even one statewide candidate or anything.
Should the Libertarians qualify multiple lines too?
End Stop and Frisk Party
Legalize Marijuana Party
Marriage Equality Party
Cut Red Tape Party
357 Not 911 Party
Etc…
Sure there is: the Republican Astorino.
There is no such thing as Stop Common Core Party; it’s a front for the Republicans.
Similarly, and not to be out-done, the Democrats made up a party, named it Women’s Equality Party, and guess who they’re running: Andrew Cuomo!
In New York, the D’s and the R’s think you can fool all the people all the time.
There’s no candidate from the Stop Common Core party?
Jed–A zillion people ran for Mayor last year. I don’t know him, but there were so many, that I may have missed him.
Jill–Thanks!
Mark, I’ll try to get your article posted within the next hour.
I have edited the post. The name Michael Carey sounds familiar to me. Did he run for NYC mayor last year?
Richard–
Any idea who Michael Carey is?
We all know all about Jimmy!
We can file until Midnight on the last day.
I have re-written my original post to now say 7 candidates is likely, and to add Carey and McMillan. When I wrote the original post, the NY State Board of Elections hadn’t put up those two filings, even though it was after 5 pm on filing day.
oops–make that Life and Justice.
Hard to keep the names of all these new “parties” straight.
I have to disagree with Richard Winger on this one.
He is presuming that neither the Rent is too Damn High nor the Liberty and Justice petitions are valid. I think it’s too soon to tell with them, so there may be six or seven candidates in the end.
Sloan’s filing is a complete fraud and will be rejected prima facie. We have not reviewed either of the others.
The real New York Libertarian Party submitted over 30,000 signatures for twelve different candidates yesterday morning. Unlike Sam Sloan, whose petition was really less than 400 pages containing only 600 names, most of which are not valid, we submitted double (and in one case triple) the number of signatures required for independent candidates in New York.