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Political Intrigue In An Already Weird Race
By MICHAEL SCHENKLER
Follow me on Twitter @QueensTribune
We’ve spent some time this week fielding calls, emails and a variety of leads concerning our “Pagan Lord” running-for-City Council in Northeast Queens story.
It has started quite a buzz and while I would like to comment in depth about it here, things appear to be moving so fast that all I can do is try to keep you up to date.
A reliable source close to Republican County Leader Phil Ragusa informs us that while the Republicans were publicly claiming our story was a “hit piece,” priivately, they were meeting -- Ragusa and members of his Queens GOP inner circle -- to discuss what to do about Dan Halloran, now that it was revealed that the GOP 19th Council District candidate was indeed the head of a pagan religion in the greater metropolitan area. Halloran has acknowledged using the name O’Halloran when performing his role as “First Atheling,” or King, of Normandy, a branch of the Theod faith of pre-Christian Heathen religions.
The Republican hierarchy discussed and explored methods to remove Halloran from their party line in an attempt to capitalize on the fact that the victor of the Democratic Primary, Kevin Kim, was a Korean American.
There are, as I understand it, three ways this late in the election process to remove a candidate from the party line: he could die, move out of the district or be nominated for a judgeship.
They concluded Dan was clearly alive, had little reason to move, so they focused the discussion on having the GOP Judicial Convention name Halloran, who now embarrassed them running for the City Council, as a nominee for a Queens Judgeship – perhaps the Supreme Court.
Hang in there, it gets better.
Now this GOP insider move to dump Halloran as a Council candidate by making him a judicial candidate runs into one major obstacle. New York State Law requires that an attorney practice for at least 10 years before he is eligible to stand for election to the judiciary. Halloran apparently has only six years of practice under his belt. He simply is not qualified to be a judge in the State of New York.
The Republican insiders were so desperate to replace Halloran with a candidate who they believed might have a chance of victory against Democrat Kevin Kim since they believed he would lose traditional votes in the Democratic District due to racism, put their attorneys to work, we are told. Even though they acknowledged Halloran was not qualified to serve, they hypothesized, could they nominate him and then have him disqualified for the judiciary in order to select another Council candidate.
And who would that replacement candidate be?
Well, we weren’t given all the names discussed. However, we were informed that Queens County Chair Ragusa is a resident of the 19th Council District. But the name that seemed to create the most buzz at this hush-hush meeting was that of lifelong Democrat and youngest member of the Vallone family Democratic dynasty – Paul Vallone.
Could Paul, who finished third in the Democratic Primary, be enticed for another shot at the same office, this time as a Republican? Would his father, Peter Sr, former Democratic Speaker of the Council, former Democratic candidate for Mayor and Governor, be able to play ball and make a deal with the GOP? Would his brother, Democratic Councilmember Peter Jr, jeopardize his frontrunner slot for the position of Queens District Attorney should the Democratic Vallone dynasty throw into this Republican cabal?
I have not reached out to the Vallones for an answer and I don’t think it is a question worth asking because for the GOP to proceed with the plot, it would require Halloran to knowingly accept a nomination to the bench for which he was not qualified by law – an action that could result in an attorney being sanctioned. Whether or not such action on the part of the GOP judicial delegates and leadership would amount to fraud would have to be answered by the courts.
But it’s a great story and indeed, a reliable source close to Ragusa has assured us it happened pretty much as we’ve related it.
But if the GOP leadership thinks a Pagan Lord might better fit into the Judiciary than the New York City Council, might I suggest that next year, they run him for State Senate.
MSchenkler@QueensTribune.com
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| Trib exclusive: Will the Republican leadership try to change the color of the robes worn by Council candidate Dan Halloran, the First Atheling of the rapidly growing Normannii Thiud, a pagan religion?
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Different Factor Influenced Voting; Politics is Personal
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| Henry Stern
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By
HENRY STERN
The Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus (c160-c210) wrote “the mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine.” The English poet George Herbert included a truncated version in his Jacula Prudentum (1640), “God’s mill grinds slow but sure.”
Fourteen years later, the German Friedrich von Logau used Sextus’ wording for his poem, “Retribution.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82) translated Logau’s poem into English, with the verses we know today:
“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small, Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”
First we report that several readers we respect have written us to say that anger over term limits was not the reason that four Councilmembers lost their seats. There were other aggravating factors such as childishness, corruption, inattention to the district and superannuation. Connect the dots.
WISDOM OF THE SAGES
Two major New York journalists weighed in with their observations on last Tuesday’s election. In the Times, Clyde Haberman wrote Mayor Stole Center Stage In Primaries. The columnist was upset that Mayor Bloomberg held a political rally Tuesday night, the very night Comptroller Thompson defeated Anthony Avella and Roland Rogers in a Democratic primary in which a record low of 310,000 people voted. In comparison, in the 1989 Koch-Dinkins mayoral primary, 1,060,000 votes were cast, more than three times as many as this year. Haberman goes on to berate Bloomberg over the change in term limits, which enabled the Mayor to seek a third term.
We are not critical of the election night party. There was no overlap with people who otherwise would be congratulating fellow Democrats. You could say that the primary marks the beginning of the seven-week homestretch, and that is a reasonable time for a candidate to celebrate with his supporters. Nobody owns the calendar.
We have repeatedly found fault with the Mayor for using the self-serving City Council as his instrument to over-ride two referenda. He should have appointed a Charter Revision Commission in January 2008, and put the matter on the ballot that year. That is what he said he would do.
He didn’t keep his word because he was contemplating an independent campaign for President and did not believe he would want to be Mayor again. There was certainly no reason to extend term limits for the underachievers on the City Council. The more highly regarded Councilmembers could run for the higher offices that were being vacated because of term limits. Some, like Joe Addabbo of Queens, had already decamped for the State Senate.
When one votes for a Mayor, however, the bottom line should be the best interest of the city and its people, and who one judges should be the thousand or so men and women who comprise an administration, and the hundreds of judges the mayor will appoint. The comparison to make is with the people in office and those who are likely to be their successors.
MORE PERFECT DEMOGRAPHY
Veteran Times reporter and television host Sam Roberts is known for his institutional memory with regard to New York City. In recent years, he has written about the census in the changing city. In an article last week, he discusses the Council’s own demographics. The headline: In Council, Minorities On Edge Of Majority.
In the redistricting that followed the 1990 Census, which was done by a Commission headed by Dr. Frank J. Macchiarola, former schools chancellor and president of St. Francis College in Brooklyn, Black and Latino districts’ representation increased substantially.
Districts were drawn to facilitate their election, because it was felt that they were underrepre-sented in the previous Council. This is based on the belief that no one can be represented adequately by a person of another race. That view had been adopted by the Justice Department under both Democratic and Republican attorneys general.
Mr. Roberts quotes Speaker Quinn: “New York is the most diverse city in the world. We are excited that the Council will be even more diverse and more reflective of the communities we serve.” That is the conventional wisdom – that’s us, not Ms. Quinn.
The Roberts column continues: “Henry J. Stern, a former city parks commissioner and now president of New York Civic, another watchdog group, said it was unlikely to mean much to most New Yorkers. ‘There might be a difference in terms of who gets the patronage jobs, and in attitudes toward confirming mayoral appointees.’ The article continues:
“Mr. Stern was elected to the Council in 1973 as a Liberal Party candidate for one of Manhattan’s two at large seats [the late Robert F. Wagner, Jr., was elected to the other, receiving twice as many votes], which were created [by referendum in 1961] to increase minority party representation.
“‘Minorities meant something different then,’ he said. ‘It’s morphed from someone who votes differently to someone who looks different.’”
StarQuest@NYCivic.org |
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Not4Publication.com by Dom Nunziato |
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