GOP Leaders Use Ballot Access to Fight for Patronage and Power

It is not only challengers to local offices who are held hostage, even billionaire mayors must contend with Tammany Hall’s control of New York's Ballot Box. The dance in the media about some Republican county leaders who are unhappy with the mayor is really the result of a behind the scenes, closed-door battle on who gets to be Number 1 with the current mayor: Giuliani, Pataki or the county leaders themselves. What the Republican county leaders are saying is: we don’t want the former mayor and governor acting as our middle men with the mayor. The buzz is that Bloomberg is demanding that Pataki and Giuliani deliver the Republican leaders before their meeting on February 25th.

Even A Dead Party Has Power in NYC
The fight over who the big dog with the mayor is, doesn't quite qualify as a civil war, for that you need troops. There are no elected Republican officials in Manhattan, the Bronx and Queens and only one in Brooklyn. This year the Republicans lost their only congressmember in the city when it was discovered he had two families. There is no GOP vote to deliver in the city. It is all about controlling the ballot line.

But A Powerful Last Card to Play
What the GOP has over the mayor is ballot access in the name of a Wilson-Pakula law that requires Bloomberg who registered as an independent (not independent party) when he was running for president to obtain the written permission of three of the city’s five Republican county leaders to run for re-election on the Republican ballot line.

It's not just the four council candidates knocked off the ballot in the Staten Island special election who are victims of the Tammany Hall ballot access system, designed over a 100 years ago to give those in power total control of the city’s politics and government. Even the billionaire mayor is caught in Boss Tweed's 130 years old corrupt scheme of control. Today’s machine made of party leaders and elected officials, have perfected Tammany’s system to compensate for their loss of control over the ability to deliver votes.

Even Obama Cannot Change New York
Tammany's system prevents change. Even if the newspaper editorials and good government groups continue for the next 100 years to speak out against New York’s corrupt politicians $$$, dysfunctional government, lobbyists, increased taxes and services cut, these problems will never be solved until we end machine control of elections in New York and return democracy to its citizens. Change occurs when elected officials believe they can lose their elections.

More on Tammany’s Control of the City’s Elections: The Real Campaign is to Suppress Challengers