New York: Court says no disenrollment for Lenora Fulani, Fred Newman and supporters

Fulani’s Victory
August 15, 2006
by Elizabeth Benjamin, Albany Times Union blog with links to the legal decision:
The Daily News reported today that state Independence Party Chairman Frank MacKay’s efforts to get Lenora Fulani and her supporters excommunicated from the party - a move at least tacitly supported by a certain U.S. senator and a likely soon-to-be governor - aren’t going so well.
State Supreme Court justices in Brooklyn (last week) and Manhattan (yesterday) ruled MacKay and other party leaders can’t eject Fulani and her ally, Fred Newman, simply because of anti-Semitic statements they made two decades ago and have since refused to repudiate.... [more]

Fulani ban nixed
BY BARBARA ROSS
DAILY NEWS, Aug 15
The Independence Party can't boot Lenora Fulani's supporters just because she and a top aide made racist, anti-Semitic statements 20 years ago, a judge ruled yesterday.The decision by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman means that 134 Fulani allies in Manhattan can stay on the party rolls. Last week, a Brooklyn judge made a similar ruling about party members in that borough... [more]


From NYC Independence Party press release:
Court Rejects Independence Chair MacKay’s Effort to Disenroll Fulani, Newman and 100 + Party MembersCites lack of Evidence of “Disloyalty”
...Fred Newman, a central target in MacKay’s attempted purge, applauded the Judge’s decision and stated:"Judge Goodman’s decision is very thoughtful and fair. She suggests that Frank MacKay’s motives might have been political. Dr. Fulani and I believe that this was politically motivated through and through."

"MacKay and his upstate cronies tried to use—and abuse—state election law to effect a purge against the most loyal, most successful and most committed branch of the Independence Party. He did so at the direct public urging of Eliot Spitzer and Hillary Clinton. The entire New York political establishment, from the media to the Mayor (whom we got elected twice), was prepared to give him a pass. Fortunately, the court called MacKay on the carpet and said the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the State of New York take precedence over the machinations of petty tyrants."

"The reason so many voters are becoming independents today is that they can’t stand the corruption of the political system. Today’s court decision means that the independent movement can be free of that kind of corruption." [more]