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Strangest ElectionEvery year, we hear a lot of hyperbole about elections - “This is the most important election of our lifetime”, “X’s campaign is the worst I’ve ever seen”, “Y’s ads are the nastiest of all time”, etc. But I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this year’s election for Civil Court Judge in 7th District in Manhattan is the strangest in memory. The 7th District boundaries are basically 110th Street west of 8th Avenue to the upper tip of Manhattan. This year, 2 Civil Court judges are to be elected. As is most judicial races, the winners here are inevitably chosen in the Democratic Primary. However, that’s not what’s happening here. For one of the two positions, there is a Democratic candidate – Rita Mella, who is presently the Law Clerk to Brooklyn Surrogate Margarita Lopez Torres. But for reasons that are both too complicated and murky, there is no Democratic candidate for the other slot. And for reasons that are simple (they assumed there would be a full slate of Democratic candidates, there are no Republican, Independence, Conservative or Working Families Party candidates either. But there are candidates. Two women, both of whom have a proud family history created their own Parties and petitioned to run. Kelly O’Neill Levy is the daughter of a retired Supreme Court Justice and the niece of former Mayor William O’Dwyer and former City Council President Paul O’Dwyer. Levy is now Law Clark to Supreme Court Justice Sherry Heitler. Her Party is the Northern Manhattan Party. Shari R. Michels is the daughter of Stanly Michels, who served as the City Councilman for much of the Judicial District from 1978 until 2002. Michels was until the campaign an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan. Her Party is the Equal Justice Party. Levy and Michels are running real campaigns, comparable to those run by judicial candidates in contested Primaries. They have both raised a good amount of money and have professional campaign managers and consultants. Borough President Scott Stringer, City Councilman Miguel Martinez and the New York Times, among others, have endorsed Levy. Michels has the support of Congressman Charles Rangel, Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat and Councilman Robert Jackson, plus others. It seems like a fair fight and the real difficulty that the campaigns have is that nobody has any more than a guess as to how many votes it will take to win. We are in uncharted waters here. Because Levy & Michels are running on “minor” Party lines, both of their names will appear on the voting machine on the extreme right side of the ballot. Mella, the Democrat will appear in the normal position for Democratic candidates. While the instructions on the machine will say that voters can vote for two, it’s is inevitable that most voters will either vote for the Democrat or not vote at all, as they will assume Mella is unopposed. There are 171,208 voters in the district. In 2002, the last election for Governor, 51,917 votes was cast. Assuming there is a 50% drop off between people voting for Spitzer & Hillary and those voting for Civil Court, that means about 25,000 will vote. But of these, most will vote for Mella and ignore the other contest. The winner between Levy & Michels could win with as little as 1,000 votes. But nobody knows, so all three candidates are out campaigning full force until Election Day. FULL DISCLOSURE My company Prime New York has consulted for candidate Rita Mella Kelly O'Neill Levy was reported out of the same Independent Screening Panel last summer that also found Rita Mella most highly qualified.
Kelly O'Neill Levy is also supported by Assemblyman Keith Wright, Council Member Inez Dickens, David Dinkins , Fernando Ferrer and Congresswoman Nydia Velasquez.
I find Michael's campaign lit strange - it says, "She's one of us" with the "us" underlined. When you emphasize it in that way, it seems like it's setting up the opposition - i.e., and she's not one of them. Who is she attempting to appeal to?
The real story here is how did the highly paid political consultants about town...you know, the ones who FEED off of open Court primaries, miss this opportunity?????
That's as surprising a flies not circling a pile of shit! 3:25 PM's analysis is incorrect in on least two points. First, the Screening Panel does not find canididates "unqualified," but merely reports out those (three candidates for every position available) who are deemed "most highly qualified." Secondly, Shari Michels didn't appear before thie panel for the 7th Judical District vacancies, because, as she stated, she was reluctant to run in a district where she "didn't resemble" the overwhelming majority of the voters. She decided to run when there was no Democratic Party candidate for one of the openings.
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It certainly gets strange, and on closer review, seems to be a conscious manipulation of the process by the Democratic Party regulars.
Consider the role of Shari Michels' father, former Councilmember Stanley Michels. For years, Stanley has steadfaastly and proudly defended as his legacy the Manhattan Democratic Party's system of handpicking judges by touting his role in establishing the Democrats "model" Screening Panel. The Manhattan Dems proudly trumpet their rule that they will only support candidates reported out of their screening panel. (Indeed, they proudly pointed to their supposedly impartial screening panel in their futile "we ain't like Brooklyn" defense in opposing the Brennan Center lawsuit that ultimately through out the current judicial annointment scheme)
So what happened this year? Stanley's daughter goes in front of the Democrats' screeing panel, but --- surprise! surprise! -- she's rejected, apparently found unqualified, and three other candidates are recommended instead.
Next, the Dem regulars' original candidate for one of the two vacancies, Lou Nock, files many times the required number of signatures for the vacancy, but then a few days later files a form declining the nomination. And, oddly enough, had set up no commmittee on vacancies to replace him (can anyone explain this?) The Party's lawyer, Arthur Grieg, then represents one Franklin Hess in a successful challenge to the petitions filed by another Democratic candidate for that vacancy, Verena Rivera-Powell. Result: Voila! No "Democrats" on the primary ballot for the first vacancy -- leaving Democratic party leaders free to now support Shari Michels running as an independent in the general election without fear of breaking the party's taboo against supporting candidates who fail to be reported out of their screening panel.
Meanwhile, Stanley sends out a fundraising letter on behalf of his daughter (even though the judicial conduct rules apparently bar such appeals by immediate family members), in which he states that "Due to an unprecedented turn of events, she must run on an independent line." Nonsense. The only reason Shari Michels "must run on an indepencent line" is that she didn't bother to gather petitions to get on the ballot in the Democratic primary. There was no legal bar to her doing so -- just a "political difficulty," apparently. Could it be that she thought she'd lose the primary? Was she worried that the Democratic party machinery would be forced to oppose her since she flunked their sacred screening panel?
Another interesting wrinkle is that under election law, all three candidates are competing against each other for the 2 open seats in District 7. Thus, voters can vote for any combination of 2 candidates (Levy and Michels, Levy and Mella, or Michels and Mella), and any of those combinations could win.
Yet Stanley's fundraising letter also tells potential funders that "none of the major parties, including the Democratic Party, has nominated anyone for this seat" -- ignoring, of course, the fact that Rita Mella won a contested primary for a ballot spot as a Democrat and is, in reality, one of Shari's 2 opponents.