For Immediate Release
Contact:  Bill O’Reilly, 212-396-9117
Bill@NovemberTeam.com

CHRIS CUOMO: “NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW”

ANDREW CUOMO: I AM THE LAW

NEW YORK STATE CONSERVATIVE PARTY TO UNLAWFUL CUOMO COMMISSION: “DROP DEAD”

 New York – Sept. 10…It’s a familiar CNN radio advertisement: “No man is above the law — not even the President,” Cuomo Prime Time host Christopher Cuomo bellows on the airwaves in the name of honest government.

But here in New York, Mr. Cuomo’s brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo, is singing the opposite tune in working to circumnavigate the power of New York voters — and a State Legislature that represents them — by unlawfully attempting to quell speech from third-party voters in the Empire State and unjustly saddle taxpayers with the cost of state political campaigns, the New York State Conservative Party (NYSCP) today charged.  The NYSCP called both measures, “blatant and unconstitutional end-runs around a duly-elected Legislature.”

Mr. Cuomo is erroneously claiming that his newly appointed “Commission on Public Financing,” which meets today in New York City, has the power to end the long-established (first used in an 1854 gubernatorial election) and Constitutionally-upheld practice of fusion voting in New York State and to set up a statewide system of taxpayer funded campaigns, the NYSCP said. It does not, the NYSCP maintains, noting that New York State Election Law can only be created or amended by the Legislature — not by commissions — and that fusion voting has been repeatedly upheld in State courts as a Constitutionally-protected practice. The NYSCP has filed a legal action challenging the Commission’s authority.

Mr. Cuomo’s commission is chaired by State Democratic Party leader, Jay Jacobs.

The NYSCP, which opposes taxpayer funding of political campaigns and refuses to recognize the authority of the Commission on Public Financing, will not be attending Tuesday’s hearing.

“Anyone who cherishes free speech and the rule of law should be alarmed by what Governor Cuomo and the New York State Democratic Party are trying to ram through with this sham commission,” NYSCP Chairman Gerard Kassar said. “They are attempting to shut down political dissent in New York and foist the cost of political campaigns on already beleaguered New Yorker taxpayers. Hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers — conservatives and progressives alike — will have their voices silenced and millions will have their pockets picked if Governor Cuomo’s frightening power grab is not stopped.”

Fusion voting permits candidates to run on more than one ballot line, allowing voters to cast nuanced votes by supporting chosen candidates on ballot lines with which they most ideologically agree. It was enacted in the early 20th Century by good-government organizations to help combat endemic corruption in Tammany Hall Democratic politics, and thrice upheld as Constitutional by State courts.

Chairman Kassar is urging state legislators to make clear their authority over matters of law: “There’s only one way to make or change state law in New York,” he said, “and that’s through a duly elected state legislature. As a former Attorney General, Mr. Cuomo shouldn’t have to be reminded of that.”

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