Andy Lanza Has Balls: NYS Elections 'Bigfoot Sighting'
NYS Senate Minority Leader Shows Unwavering Support For U.S. Senate Candidate Cara Castronuova
By M. Thomas Nast
Ed Cox and his RINO cronies probably don't want to see this, which is equivalent to a “Bigfoot Sighting” in New York State politics.
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We’ve criticized him before for some of the Staten Island GOP’s questionable deals. But things like this remind you why he’s been the Dean of Albany’s Republican delegation for the better part of two decades.
Talk about balls; it's not every day the #2 man in the NYS Senate walks into the Albany Offices of the NYS Board of Elections. Even rarer is when the “swashbuckling, migrant-fighting, brawler,” Staten Island's own Deputy Minority Leader, NYS Senator Andrew Lanza, struts in carrying petitions for a candidate.
But Thursday, it happened. Sources say Lanza showed up at the NYSBOE with U.S. Senate Candidate Cara Castronuova and let his presence be known.
“He told everyone that he was 100% behind Cara Castranouva, and if there were any problems, he wanted to be the first to know,” said a source inside the NYSBOE.
Lanza’s presence at the Pearl Street NYSBOE Office caused quite the commotion.
“At the small front counter, there are usually two people. Within minutes of [Lanza]’s arrival, there was a scrum of people clamoring to be seen by the Senator,” the source said.
Will Lanza’s presence be enough to insulate Cara Castronuova from election petitions shenanigans? Probably not, say many insiders.
Castronuova and political activist and Newsmax personality John Tabacco have already sued to secure her place on the ballot and to protect the equal protection and voting rights of New York State Republican Party members.
Ed Cox and the NYS GOP have already lawyered up with powerhouse law firm Cullen and Dykman, LLP. In documents filed with the EDNY court, Cox’s papers say that the NYS GOP’s imposition on rank-and-file Republican voters’ rights “is not a recognized constitutional injury.”
Cox’s papers also claim that Castronuova has suffered no injury, just speculation.
“Ms. Castronuova admits she has already obtained at least 15,000 signatures and merely believes that those signatures may be challenged, and that challenge may be successful, and at that point Ms. Castronuova may be prevented from appearing on the ballot,” the New York Republican State Committee’s papers say.
But John Tabacco says otherwise in a filing drafted during a car ride back from Albany. He claims that over 1,000 of Castronuova’s signatures were invalidated within 24 hours of filing the ballot access petition.
In their briefing, Defendants argue that we only need 15,000 signatures. History shows that this is false, and if granted a hearing we can provide testimony to prove it. But the Court need only look to the Molinari case which clearly shows that the establishment uses tactics like the town/city trap to invalidate ballots. Over the last month I personally saw many examples where people fell into the town/city trap.
We already have reason to suspect that hundreds if not thousands of the signatures have been invalidated in less than 24 hours for de minimis, insignificant, and immaterial technical reasons.
Tabacco also says that Cox’s lawyers have no business in this case.
“After all that they have done for the New York League of Conservation Voters, they are in a definite ethical position of conflict of interest,” Tabacco said, alluding to Ed Cox’s connection to the leftist NYLCV.
Tabacco and Castronuova’s case has been punted around the EDNY courthouse for a week, seeing four judges in five days. The case now lands on the desk of Obama appointee Pamela K. Chen.
Tabacco says the controversy has already begun with the latest Brooklyn Federal Court judge.
“I called the Court’s chambers to ask if I could fax our application, given the fact that the challenged election law regime requires us to be in Albany to file and defend petitions. We can’t be in two places at once. Though the clerk was very nice, she said that the Judge wouldn’t accept faxed submissions from Pro Se parties, even under these circumstances,” Tabacco said.
He continued, “While Ed Cox’s high-priced and well-paid lawyers have e-filing access and can respond instantaneously, the Court has relegated us to ‘horse-and-buggy’ privileges.”
Election law cases are normally highly politicized, which may explain the reticence of EDNY judges to take them up, says a well-known New York Democratic consultant speaking under conditions of anonymity.
“Neither major party wants New York’s petitioning scheme curtailed. The problem is that the facts are against [Ed Cox and the GOP]. If you think the two-party establishment is going to give [Castronuova] a walk in the park, then I have a Nigerian prince you can marry your sister off to. She’s going to see a battle in at the Board. She’s going to see a battle in Court. And if she stays on the ballot, she will see a battle in the primary,” the consultant said.
The consultant said that Castronuova might find surprising support from upstate voters.
“The state of the GOP is that Haggerty in Queens and then Nassau and Suffolk make a deal to back a US Senate Candidate. Once they claim they have 25%, then they bullwhip the Northern and Western County leaders into going along with them. And they do so begrudgingly because they don’t want a primary,” the consultant said.
However, the consultant said the claim that the Queens-Nassau-Suffolk bloc had 25 percent of the Republican committee vote is illusory.
“It’s based on a total number of voters in the gubernatorial race, not a weighted number. So Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk actually needed the small county leaders the bull-whipped to get to 25 percent. But they didn’t know it,” the consultant said.
With Castronuova having strong support in deep-red Staten Island and Lanza as one of her generals who can broker support and coalitions across the state, the primary might be a battle.
“Lanza is the rabbi I would want. And don’t discount how much Carl [Palladino] and his ilk out west despise how powerful the downstate Queens-Nassau-Suffolk bloc has become.”
And it’s true. Who’s better than Andy Lanza to help hunt down the RINOs in the NY GOP? No one who is living. Only one other person comes to mind.
