Opinion ID: 795608
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Delegate Lobbying Period

Text: 51 Political parties hold their judicial nominating conventions one to two weeks after the judicial delegates are elected. N.Y. Elec. L. §§ 6-124, -126, -158(5). During that interim period, any Supreme Court Justice aspirant, whether or not she sought to have delegates elected at the primary election, theoretically may lobby the delegates for support. However, the evidence established that for two reasons, a candidate who lacks the support of her party's leadership has no actual opportunity to lobby delegates. 52 First, the time frame for lobbying delegates is unrealistically brief. In contested delegate elections, candidates have only two weeks to lobby at least 64 delegates and as many as 248, depending on the judicial district in which they were running. Where the delegate elections are uncontested, the delegates-elect theoretically may be known as early as July, when the nominating petitions are due. As we will explain, however, at least one candidate who attempted to obtain the names of delegates prior to the primary found her effort thwarted by local party officials. 53 More importantly, delegates do not exercise their own judgment when deciding which candidate to support. Instead, they endorse the choice of the entity with which they are affiliated and to which they are subject. As set forth above, in the case of almost all delegate slates that achieve ballot access, that entity is the local party leadership. Defense expert Kellner admitted as much: By definition, the convention system is designed [so] that the political leadership of the party is going to designate the party's candidates. Specifically, judicial delegates are part of the party leadership and responsive to it and make it up, you know, constitute the party leadership. 54 Henry Berger, the former Chairman of New York's Commission on Judicial Conduct, as well as a former district leader and judicial delegate, agreed that there is a close organizational affiliation between the county leaders, district leaders, and judicial delegates. Berger described that county leaders exert control over their committee members, i.e., the district leaders, who in turn exert control over the delegates: In my experience, the district leaders almost always follow the wishes of the county party chairperson when it comes to voting for Supreme Court candidates at the convention. In turn, the delegates follow the wishes of the district leaders who have selected them and support the county party chairperson's chosen candidates. Berger testified that this dynamic was so established in the Second and Twelfth Judicial Districts that party officials told him the names of the judicial nominees even before the delegates—who purportedly select the nominees—were even elected. 55 A professor of sociology from the University of Washington who served as a defense expert described a process in the Eleventh and Twelfth Judicial Districts by which, according to one participant, delegates offer and unanimously confirm nominees though they don't even know how to pronounce their name[s]. As to the Ninth Judicial District, a longtime judicial delegate averred that because it is practically impossible for a candidate to field her own slate of delegates, county party leaders control the selection of delegates and alternates to the convention. Thus, a candidate's only path [to the nomination] is to obtain the support of his or her county Party chairman and then seek the blessing of the Westchester County chair. 4 56 The county leaders' organizational affiliation with the judicial delegates is not the only reason they are able to control them so precisely. Also important is the fact that the party leadership possesses the power to doom a delegate's political career if she should reject its choice for Supreme Court Justice. Assemblymember Herman Denny Farrell, who is a district leader, chairman of the New York County Democratic Committee, and State Democratic Party chairman, testified of judicial delegates that, No one wants to get me angry, so they will not go against me until they have nothing to lose. 5 Similarly, a defense witness who serves as a Manhattan district leader and often served as a judicial delegate testified that it makes no sense to alienate the [county leader] over a choice of Supreme Court candidate because three years down the line when we were seeking something from the county leader . . . he might remember that I didn't support him at a different time. Asked whether he could remember a single instance of a judicial candidate receiving the nomination over Farrell's objection, the district leader replied, No. I can't remember it ever happening that way. 57 Similarly, two judges testified that in the Third and Seventh Judicial Districts, respectively, the party leadership tapped reliable people to be judicial delegates, people who would adhere to the instructions of each county chairman. Otherwise, as the judges averred, they would be jeopardizing their political future. 58 The District Court also found that county leaders do not have to issue explicit commands to control the manner in which delegates vote. Defense expert Kellner conceded that at least in some judicial districts, the leadership of the party . . . hold[s] a meeting before the convention to work things out, and then makes nomination recommendations to the delegates. Asked whether those recommendations were always followed, Kellner replied, Generally, yes. Another defense expert admitted that, in the Second Judicial District, [i]n virtually all cases, the delegates support the candidates supported by their district leader. Similarly, plaintiff and former judicial delegate John W. Carroll testified that delegates are told by party leaders this is the slate we're supporting at the convention and then that delegation support[s] that slate, even though the party leadership did not expressly tell the delegation how it should vote. 59 State Senator Martin Connor's actions at the 2002 Democratic Convention in the Second Judicial District further illustrate the power of implicit dynamics. Connor, who was then the minority leader of the New York State Senate, chaired that convention. He testified that Assemblymember Clarence Norman, Jr., who at the time was the Brooklyn county leader, had decided to confer a nomination on a person Connor believed was a horrible choice— unqualified and temperamentally unfit for the bench. However, Connor needed Norman's support in order to fend off a challenge to an incumbent Democratic State Senator who was facing a difficult reelection bid in Brooklyn. Accordingly, instead of voicing his objection, Connor simply convened the convention, stepped down as chair, quickly departed, and allowed the nomination to go forward. I long since learned the value [in] politics of the unspoken thought, he testified.