By Dee Richard
Petitioning time starts June 8 and ends July 16. The corresponding races being run are for Congress, state Senate and state Assembly. This should provide something to do for college students interested in the political process. Pick your candidate and volunteer.
Petitioning is the most creative process on the political landscape. There are a minimal amount of signatures required for each office. For Congress it is 1,250, for the Senate 1,000 and for the Assembly 500. But a candidate should secure two to three times or more of the required signatures, as they will most surely be challenged.
The signatures must be attained in the political division where the individual race is being run. Any signatures obtained outside the designated area are considered invalid and will be tossed out. The signers must all be registered voters eligible to vote in the primary for the candidate they are signing for. The subscribing witnesses can live anywhere in Queens, but must be registered Democrats to collect signatures for a candidate running on the Democratic line or registered Republicans to obtain signatures for a candidate on the Republican line.
We have to hope the intended integrity protecting the voters’ rights is maintained and that when the complete bound petition sheets are submitted to the state Board of Elections that they contain a true representation of the voters’ choices.
On Thursday, our first stop was a fund-raiser for Matthew Silverstein, another Democratic candidate for Assemblywoman Ann-Margaret Carrozza’s seat, which was held at Donovan’s in Bayside. He is a qualified and interesting young man and a lifetime resident of Bayside, having graduated from Bayside High School and Baruch College, where he studied political science. He has a master’s in urban affairs from Hunter College and is a project analyst for America Works of New York.
Most of his background seems to be involved with both community and social service networks, which has involved finding employment for veterans, welfare recipients, food stamp recipients, formerly incarcerated individuals, people receiving Social Security benefits, youth aging out of foster care and homeless or sheltered individuals living in New York City Housing Authority housing. Good luck, Matt. Keep us posted.
From there it was off to the Plum in Bayside for a kickoff for Elio Forcina, who is also a Democrat running for Carrozza’s seat. This fund-raiser was mainly for the benefit of Elio’s young friends and potential volunteers to help him on his campaign. His big fund-raiser was held May 19 at the Douglaston Manor. Good luck, Elio.
We wound up Thursday evening at the Queens GOP spring dinner and awards reception at Roma View in Howard Beach. The honorees were U.S. Rep. Peter King, who was presented with the Ronald Regan Award; City Councilman Peter Koo, who was presented with the Abraham Lincoln Award; and Assistant Queens Park Commissioner Estelle Cooper, who was presented with the Theodore Roosevelt Award.
They had a nice turnout. Some of the guests were Phil Ragusa, Vinny Tabone, Robert Beltrani, Steve Graves, Katherine James, Marie Lynch, Phil Sica, Judith and Herb Stupp, Linda Gritsch, Frank Messano, Kimon Thermos, Liz Birney, Dee Maddis, William Johnert, Mike Niebauer, former Sen. Serf Maltese, Dr. James Milano, Sen. Frank Padavan, Sen. Marty Golden, Janet and Bob Bishop, Councilman Dan Halloran, Koo, Councilman Eric Ulrich, Queens Conservative Party Chairman Tom Long, Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos and fabulous keynote speaker Betsy McCaughey.
She is one of the few people who can claim she has actually read every single page of the Obama health care plan, which as you know consists of more than 2,000 pages, and has devoted much time, effort and energy into researching all aspects of the plan. In our opinion, it would seem she is one of the most qualified people to discuss the merits or lack thereof of the consequences, both immediate and long-term.
Apparently, like most of these pieces of legislation that have become law, the devil is in the details and will undoubtedly require many discussions, revisions and amendments during the process of trying to make it one-size-fits-all.
That’s it for this week.
I look forward to hearing from you with information on people, parties and politics or gossip.
I like receiving your voice mails at 718-767-6484, faxes at 718-746-0066 and e-mails at deerrichard@aol.com.
Till next week, Dee.
