FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Bill O’Reilly, 212-396-9117

Bill@NovemberTeam.com

Statement from New York State

Conservative Party Chairman Gerard Kassar

 October 22, 2019

“Free speech and the competition of ideas — the lifeblood of democracy — are being brazenly and unlawfully threatened by Governor Andrew Cuomo and his handpicked state Democratic Party boss Jay Jacobs.

“This egregious assault on the Constitutional right to fusion voting in New York is bringing together Conservatives, the Working Families Party, Republicans, and brave Democrats because of its critical importance to free political discourse in New York.

“Today, State Senate Republicans are speaking out loudly and clearly about the sham commission created by Governor Cuomo and led by Democratic Party boss Jacobs — Jacobs was granted special dispensation to lead the commission through a surreptitious and almost universally unnoticed last-minute language insertion in the 2019-20 State Budget — and rightly claiming the exclusive right of the right of the State Legislature to make Election Law changes.

“It is the ardent and legally impregnable position of New York State Conservatives and Republicans that Governor Cuomo’s so-called ‘Public Financing Commission’ lacks any authority to amend or create state law. Only the State Legislature, duly elected by the People of New York State, have that right.

“Governor Cuomo has crossed a legal line in an effort to kneecap political competition and quiet dissent in New York from both the left and the right. It is encouraging, though, to see elected leaders from starkly different political persuasions stand together against such attempted tyranny.  Our forerunners would be proud.”

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***Fusion voting was established more than a century ago in New York as a good government measure to challenge rampant Tammany Hall corruption. It has thrice been upheld as constitutional in New York’s highest courts.