The City of Troy, New York, "Where Henry Hudson Turned Around."

Friday, October 19, 2007

DE-ZWACKED

The recent decision by Judge Zwack, declaring invalid the certificate of nomination naming Robert Zinzow the Democratic candidate for the 4th Legislative District has been ***WARNING SPOILER ALERT***reversed. The decision was unanimous. Not only that, all the judges agreed.

For paranoid, conspiracy theorists out there (and we know who you are), four of the five judges are Republican. The decision can be read here.

We understand that the court based it's decision on the famous I Know You Are v But What Am I? case. Actually, it looks like the court invoked the old "No Harm, No Foul" rule.

The decision also avoided a potentially sticky situation. The Appellant* argued two points: 1) The merits of the Zwack decision under existing Election Law and 2) That Judge Zwack should have recused himself.

If the court had had denied Appellant's first argument they would have to address the second argument - recusal. By reversing on the legal merits, the propriety of Zwack hearing the case was moot. We're not suggesting that the court ignored the law and reversed merely to avoid the recusal issue. Only that
a reversal on the merits had the added benefit of avoiding the recusal issue, something that is going to crop-up every election year.

It is not known if Respondent will seek permission to appeal the the Court of Appeals.


TOWN POLITICS

We don't cover much town politics but over in Stephentown, Andrew White is running for supervisor.

We find this significant for a variety of reasons. First, we never knew Stephentown existed. So we went straight to a map of Rensselaer County and there it was! Go figure. Secondly, Mr. White would be a fine public servant. Finally, of note is that not too long ago the Stephentown Democratic Party was close to dead and buried. Now it's thriving. Competition is a good thing, whether it's Democrats running in Republican strongholds or Republicans running in places like Albany.

Here's the Dems site.

ANOTHER DEBATE?

According to the Time Union, there will be a candidate get-together on October 29, 2007 at the CYO on Fourth Street at 7:00PM. It is not a debate. So, what is it?

We understand that whatever this is, it will from 7:00PM-9:00PM. Theoretically, there could be more than 23 candidates present, leaving each candidate 45 seconds to introduce themselves.

And Elda has a website! Actually, from an aesthetic standpoint, it's the best one we've seen.

* Not to get technical, but the Appellant is the party seeking a 'do-over'

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