Keep Governor Cuomo From Killing The Working Families Party

Andrew Cuomo is notoriously thin skinned and is notoriously vindictive.

In the last primary for Governor the Working Families Party endorsed Cynthia Nixon over Andrew Cuomo. Predictably, Cuomo was the architect of a commission meant to create a new public finance campaign system which ended up as a vehicle to kill the Working Families Party. The result was a new and onerous standard for third parties to get on the ballot. In order to stay on the ballot third parties must now garner a minimum number of votes in each election year for either governor or president. It raised the required threshold for third parties to qualify for the ballot by threefold: from 50,000 to the much larger number of 2 percent of total voter turnout, or 130,000 votes. The commission also recommended that parties be required to qualify every two years, instead of every four years under previous election law.

When his commission’s actions were successfully overturned in court he incorporated the changes into his 2020 budget. This time a legal challenge failed so the new standard is being implemented in the November election.

The Working Families Party has provided an option for candidates supported by neither the Democrats nor the Republicans. In the case of Saratoga Springs, Michele Madigan was able to win election to Commissioner of Finance using the WFP line along with the Independence Party.

This is a story from a website called the Intercept chronicling Cuomo’s machinations.

I am urging those voting for Joe Biden for president to cast their vote on the Working Families Part line in order to keep them as a player in New York State politics.