Carl Fulgenzi, town supervisor of Mount Pleasant, calls race-based lawsuits attempts to ‘wipe out the Republican Party in New York.’
‘…this is a back-door effort to eliminate the two-party system and wipe out the Republican Party in New York’ – Carl Fulgenzi, Mount Pleasant Town Supervisor.
By Carl Campanile | The New York Post
A New York town leader slammed a series of race-based lawsuits trying to uproot the voting process in several towns – calling the litigation an effort to bump conservatives from office.
Civil rights lawyers are suing at least three [Westchester] governments in towns with majority white populations, claiming they’re blocking the elections of black and Hispanics by using “at-large” elections.
“I do believe this is a back-door effort by Democrats to eliminate the two-party system and wipe out the Republican Party in New York,” said Carl Fulgenzi, the town supervisor of Mount Pleasant – one of the last Republican strongholds in reliably blue Westchester County.
Mount Pleasant is one of at least three towns with majority white populations that’s being sued by civil rights attorneys under the Empire State’s John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act along the Republican-dominated town of Newburgh in Orange County and Cheetowaga, a town split between Democrats and Republicans.
More suits may soon follow. The fledgling law says the defendants have to pick up the plaintiffs’ legal costs if they’re found violating the law, which some say could encourage a litigation frenzy.
Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Democratic-run legislature in 2022 approved the new voting rights law, named after civil rights icon and the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis, after expressing concerns that the US Supreme Court and the federal government were retreating on voting rights enforcement during the Trump administration.
There are scores of towns, villages and school districts that have an at-large voting system — where voters of a municipality vote for all their government representatives as opposed to having the area split into districts or neighborhoods.
The law also says dozens of municipalities with large minority populations — including New York City — will have to file for “pre-clearance” to make any changes to their voting systems with state Attorney General Letitia James’ office, to make sure they don’t negatively affect a minority voting class.
The first plans are due in September.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of five Hispanic plaintiffs against Mount Pleasant noted that nearly half of the residents in one of its villages, Sleepy Hollow, are Latino — but a Hispanic candidate has never been elected under the at-large voting system.
“Because white voters make up a majority of the electorate, racially polarized voting with the Mount Pleasant at-large system usually, almost invariably, denies the Town’s Hispanic voters an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice to the Town Board,” said the lawsuit, filed earlier this year by Robert Spolzino of Abrams Fensterman [law firm].
The same firm has filed the voting rights cases against the town of Newburgh and Cheektowaga.
Voting rights lawyer Jeffrey Wice was hired by the local governments to research the matter, and he recommended that Mount Pleasant and the others scrap the at-large voting systems.
“At-large voting systems are vulnerable to a legal challenge. It makes it harder for minority candidates to win at-large districts,” said Wice, [who is] also a New York Law School professor.##