Opinion ID: 451885
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: CSEA's 1982 Election

Text: 3 Representing employees of the State of New York and its various political subdivisions, the CSEA has almost 200,000 members. The Union is divided into 6 regions, 313 locals, and 933 units. Most of its locals have fewer than 500 members. Nominations for election to its statewide offices of President, Executive Vice-President, Secretary and Treasurer are governed by article IV, section 5(b) of its Constitution and Bylaws, which provides for a statewide nominating committee made up of three members from each of the six regions. Members of the committee are selected by the executive board of each CSEA region, and not by the rank and file. The committee is required to select at least two candidates for each statewide office from among those members in good standing who have timely submitted a Request to Be a Candidate form. A potential candidate must receive a plurality vote of the committee to be placed on the ballot. In 1982 the constitution provided that incumbent officers who wanted to be candidates were automatically placed on the ballot. 4 Neither the constitution nor any other document provides guidelines for committee members to use in selecting candidates. The record indicates that committee members have based their decisions to vote for or against particular candidates on such attributes as education, expertise, experience, and involvement in CSEA activities. The committee members have derived this information from the submitted forms and their personal knowledge of the candidates. A CSEA member seeking statewide office who is rejected by the committee may still have his or her name placed on the ballot if the member is able to obtain the signatures of two percent of the membership on a petition within six weeks of being turned down by the committee. The signature requirement was 3,800 based on 1982 membership. 5 All four incumbents chose to be placed on the ballot for the 1982 election. Seven members applied to be candidates. The committee nominated four and rejected three, including Carter who was seeking to be Secretary. In total, the Committee nominated three individuals for President, two for Executive Vice-President, two for Treasurer, and only one, the incumbent, for Secretary. Of the four incumbents all but the Treasurer were reelected. Only one of the three members who were rejected successfully obtained the signatures needed to win a spot on the ballot. The record does not reveal whether either of the other two attempted to obtain signatures.
6 The only provision in the CSEA Constitution and Bylaws concerning election protests is in article III, section 2 and states that a member must file a protest with the Executive Director of the CSEA by certified mail within ten days of the official announcement of the election results. Prior to the election Helen Carter had protested to the CSEA Board of Directors and to the statewide election procedures committee regarding the nominating committee's selection of candidates. She was informed that her protest was untimely--because the Union's constitution did not provide for pre-election protests--and that a response by the CSEA to her protest would be inappropriate because she had instituted a federal action. (That action has been indefinitely stayed by the Eastern District.) 7 The CSEA's mail ballot election was conducted on June 15, 1982 and the results of the election were telegrammed to the candidates that same day. The official results were published in the June 18th edition of the CSEA newspaper. Carter sent a letter making numerous protests about the election to the Executive Director. On June 25, the last day of the ten-day period, she sent a telegram--orally communicated to the Union that same day--in which she amended her protest to allege that the nominating procedure was arbitrary and discriminatory in violation of the LMRDA. The Union received a written confirmation of the amended election protest on June 28, the next business day. The statewide election procedures committee informed Carter that her protests were untimely because they had not been made within ten days of the date the events she complained about occurred. As a result, Carter complained to the Secretary, who instituted the present action in the district court.