NYPAN Condemns the Passage of the New York State Democratic Committee Resolution to Repeal Fusion Voting

Press Advisory: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 4, 2019

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New York Progressive Action Network Condemns the Passage of the New York State Democratic Committee Resolution to Repeal Fusion Voting

The New York Progressive Action Network (NYPAN) condemns the passage of a resolution by the New York State Democratic Committee (NYSDC) earlier today recommending the repeal of fusion voting in New York State. NYPAN believes that this is a direct attack on the Working Families Party by Governor Cuomo, which has used fusion voting to push Democratic Party candidates to the left, including the Governor. A repeal of fusion voting must not remain part of the Governor’s budget proposal if New York State’s electoral laws are to remain conducive to democracy.

NYPAN stands with presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, United States Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, and many others in opposing the repeal of fusion voting and standing up for the Working Families Party of New York.

NYPAN Co-Chair George Albro observed that “dividing Democrats is Cuomo’s specialty. He facilitated IDC collaboration with Republican senate leadership for 8 years and did nothing to help elect Democrats to Congress or the Senate. Then today, after making a McCarthyite attack on ‘Socialists within the Democratic Party,’ Cuomo’s henchmen bullied their resolution through the State Committee despite near universal opposition among all of the newly elected legislators in the Democratic Party and the Democratic Party rank-and-file. Now his plan is to sneak this provision into the budget at the eleventh hour, knowing full well that it would be defeated as a separate vote on its merits.”

Albro added, “we call on democracy-loving legislators from both parties to vote against any budget which contains such an odious anti-democratic measure as a ban on minor party free association rights to support the candidate of their choice. Just like House Democrats voted down a budget which contained funding for Trump’s racist wall, so should New York State legislators vote against our own Trump-like Governor’s vindictive and anti-democratic measure banning fusion voting.”

Arthur Schwartz, Political Director of NYPAN and the Law Chair for the Manhattan Democratic Party stated that “the passage of this resolution by the State Democratic Committee show just how out of touch the ‘leadership body’ of the Democratic Party is with the New York State voters and the Democratic Party electorate. The New York State Democratic Party remains the most undemocratic party in any of the fifty states, which is one of the reasons why voter turnout in New York is forty-seventh lowest in the country.”

Schwartz continued, “if the NYSDC reflected the Democratic Party electorate, then the voices of the forty-two percent who voted for Bernie Sanders and the majority of Democrats who elected Jumaane Williams as Public Advocate would be reflected in a vote like this, , and the outcome would have been drastically different. Though the State Party leadership claims that this is an attack on the Conservative Party and the Independence Party, and not the Working Families Party, it was not until the WFP ran a campaign against the Democratic Party anointed candidate that the Party leadership found religion.”

NYPAN is a grassroots progressive advocacy organization, founded after the 2016 General Election, and composed of over 30 chapters and affiliates across New York State. NYPAN’s mission is to provide on-the-ground support for progressive candidates, promote progressive legislation on issues including election reform, the environment, healthcare, and social and racial justice, and work with elected officials who will fight to achieve our collective goals. NYPAN is a chapter of Our Revolution and an affiliate of the New York Working Families Party.

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Press ReleaseNew York Progressive Action Network