April 17, 2005

VIA E-MAIL & FACSIMILIE

New York Times
229 West 43rd
New York, NY 10036

Re: “Boot the Fake Parties” (New York Times, Sunday, April 17, 2004)

Dear Editor,

The Independence Party is neither a “pretend” party or a ”shell.”  It is New York’s third largest political party with 325,000 registrants and another 2.4 million non-aligned voters eligible to vote in its primaries. It polled 216,000 for Senator Charles Schumer’s reelection in 2004; 257,000 for Attorney General Elliot Spitzer in 2002; and, as noted, 60,000 votes for Michael Bloomberg, his margin of victory in 2001.  Those partnerships aided both electoral reform and political recognition of the independent voter, now 20% of the New York electorate.

This is not the first time the Times called for the elimination of the Independence Party. Sunday’s editorial objects to minor parties having the right to cross-endorse major party candidates because of the power it gives them, and complains we would be less of a problem if we ran our own candidates. But in 2002, when the party ran its own candidate for governor, the Times violently objected to that as well.

What are we to make of the Times’ histrionics about both the Independence Party and Lenora Fulani? That New York should be content to have only two political parties and only one political position on the Middle East? That is not what you’d call a healthy democracy.

Cathy L. Stewart /s/

New York County Chair

Independence Party

225 Broadway, Ste. 2010
New York, NY 10007

day:  212-962-1699

New York Times

EDITORIAL

Boot the Fake Parties

Published: April 17, 2005

If New Yorkers need another reason to get rid of all these pretend political parties cluttering the ballot, Lenora Fulani provided it last week. Dr. Fulani is in the middle of a firestorm about ugly remarks she made about Israel two decades ago and reaffirmed just last week. She said in the late 1980's that the Jews "had to sell their souls to acquire Israel" and were then forced to "function as mass murderers of people of color" to help their nation survive. She defended the comments last Wednesday on a local television station.

As outlandish as her remarks are, it is even more outlandish that this woman's control over the so-called Independence Party makes her such a big player in New York politics. The bizarre New York system allows fringe parties onto the ballot even if they support the same candidates as the two main parties. That means a lot of politicians who should know better - Senator Charles Schumer, Gov. George Pataki, Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg - kowtow to groups like Dr. Fulani's so that they can have their names on the party's ballot line.

Mr. Bloomberg, who ran for mayor in 2001 as a Republican, got 60,000 votes that year as the candidate for the Independence Party. And although he calls Dr. Fulani's remarks on Israel "phenomenally offensive," he plans to ask for her party's support in this year's mayoral race.

If these party shells picked their own candidates that would be one thing. Instead, they are like bits of political moss that survive by hanging onto the Democratic and Republican candidates.

It's time for New York's politicians to get rid of copycat parties. And while they are at it, they can stop bowing and scraping to the likes of Dr. Fulani.