It turns out that Republican and Conservative Party candidate Jim Buhrmaster is behind it all, and he's challenging a number of aspects of his opponent's filings. Steven Vasquez might have problems as to the number of registered Republicans signing his petitions, as well as with witnesses. Here's the scoop:
Republican candidate Jim Buhrmaster is hoping to knock his sole primary challenger out of the 21st Congressional District race by challenging Steven Vasquez's nominating petitions in court.
Vasquez's attorney and spokesman, Guilderland Town Board member Warren Redlich, said the case is scheduled for its first hearing in front of state Supreme Court Justice Roger McDonough this morning.
Buhrmaster's filing calls into question about 450 out of Vasquez's 1,640 signatures, claiming more than 100 signers weren't Republicans who live in the 21st district.
Buhrmaster also alleges that some of the signatures weren't witnessed by a Republican, that some people signed the petitions twice, and that others signed Buhrmaster's petitions.
What's so cool about that? Well, a few interesting things. First, if Buhrmaster's challenges are successful, it would leave Vasquez with less than the requisite 1,250 signatures required to be on the primary ballot. It would effectively end Vasquez's campaign.
Second, this is good news for us Democrats if the challenge is successful. It means we know for a fact who our General Election opponent will be even if we have no idea who's going to win the Democratic primary.
Third, I think it's funny that Vasquez's lawyer is none other than the Republican candidate for Congress in the past two general elections against retiring Democratic Congressman Mike McNulty. Everybody loves to remember how Mike scored record vote totals, even crossing the 80% threshold, in 2004 and 2006. Now Mike is great guy, but I like to think Redlich's silly "Stop Wasting Money" blog-based campaign might have helped us Dems post higher numbers.
You'll note that the court appearance was this morning. The TU blogs already have an update:
21st Congressional candidate Republican Jim Buhrmaster's legal challenge of opponent Steven Vasquez's petitions was adjourned in state Supreme Court in Albany until Wednesday morning.
The two sides met with Justice Roger McDonough in chambers this morning and agreed to the adjournment.
Buhrmaster's spokesman Josh Hills said Vasquez's attorney and spokesman, Warren Redlich, needed time to gather witnesses in the case. Redlich, however, said it's up to Buhrmaster to prove his case, and that Vasquez's side might not call any witnesses.
Redlich said after reviewing the original petition, he's confident that Vasquez can't be knocked off the Sept. 9 primary ballot. He said 106 signatures are likely valid, which is about 40 more than Vasquez needs to stay in the race.
The Albany County GOP filed a general objection with the state Board of Elections. But Buhrmaster followed up with a direct challenge to the petitions in state Supreme Court. His challenge said 452 signatures on Vasquez's petitions are invalid because of myraid reasons, including that those who signed weren't Republicans who lived in the district and that some signers put their name to Buhrmaster's petitions before Vasquez's.
Best of luck to them. It's fun for this Democrat to watch, as long as nothing like that is going down on our side...
...and something apparently is. But at least it's not campaign versus campaign, because that could ugly. Really ugly, really fast. No...this is just a Democratic committee member doing her homework and targeting the smallest bird in the race:
On the Democratic side of the same race, Keri Kresler filed a challenge with the state Board of Elections against Joseph Sullivan's petitions.
While Kresler is a committee member with the Albany city and county Democratic committees, she said committee members have nothing to do with the objections; she said she researched and filed them on her own.
There are four other Democrats in that race whose petitions haven't been challenged.
Verily, Sullivan is the weakest Democrat in the race. He has no official campaign website; he'll instruct you to Google "lonerangeralbany" and check out his AOL diary. Not only that, but he's against troop withdrawl, insists we need to keep a steady flow of oil instead of investing in alternatives, and formerly chaired the Republican committee in the city of Albany.
Sullivan announced his campaign the day before petitions were allowed to begin circulating. If Ms. Kresler's homework is A+ material, his campaign may end on the last day objections may be filed.
Thankfully, the four major Democratic candidates, Tracey Brooks, Darius Shahinfar, Phil Steck, and Paul Tonko have all agreed to let the chicken-scratch stand and face off fair and square on September 9th.
Sorry, GOPers...it doesn't look like you'll actually have a choice on that day :-) |
