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Brooklyn Republicans ordered to try, try again with leadership convention

State Judge Rules the Contentious Process at the 2015 GOP Meeting was ‘Clearly Biased’

August 15, 2016 By James Harney Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Marty Golden. Photo from www.nysenate.gov. Used with permission
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Maybe the second time will be the charm.

The first time definitely wasn’t, said a state Supreme Court judge late last week when he ordered the Brooklyn Republican Party to hold a new convention to determine just who is in charge of the borough’s GOP.

A long-simmering feud between state Sen. Marty Golden (R-Bay Ridge), the borough’s top-ranking elected Republican, and GOP County Chairman Craig Eaton boiled over at the Sept. 30, 2015 Brooklyn Republican reorganizational convention, where a county chair and members of the party’s executive committee were scheduled to be elected.

But in a surprise move, Eaton stepped down and nominated Arnaldo Ferraro, who had formerly represented Dyker Heights in the state Assembly.

Golden, however, came to the convention with his own party leadership ideas, and nominated Ted Ghorra, a Bay Ridge-based attorney, to be the new party chairman.

The senator also came armed with 438 proxy votes from committee members in support of Ghorra. Together, Eaton and ally Lucretia Regina-Potter submitted 318 backing Ferraro.

However, because Eaton controlled the executive committee at that point, 421 of Golden’s proxies were thrown out. Ferraro was installed as party chairman, after which the convention dissolved into a heated shouting match, and ultimately a lawsuit that ended up in Judge Edgar Walker’s court.

Walker ruled Aug. 12 that the voting process at the convention was “clearly biased,” and that the Eaton-controlled credentials committee had “knowingly acted in bad faith” in the vote count.

Further, the judge ruled, the credentials committee submitted the proxies supporting Ghorra to unfairly strict scrutiny, while applying “no scrutiny whatsoever” to those backing Ferraro.

“All my colleagues and I ever wanted was a fair process,” Ghorra said last week after the ruling was handed down. “Judge Walker’s careful and thoughtful decision speaks for itself.”

But a frustrated Ferraro retorted that Walker did not declare the Ghorra slate “to be the duly elected officers of the party, inasmuch as they were not properly elected.”

“… I strongly disagree with the holding of a new convention,” Ferraro said, adding, “… some clarifications are needed about the procedures of such a convention.”

The do-over Brooklyn GOP convention is expected to be held in a few months, perhaps under the watchful eyes of the New York State Republican Party, which has volunteered to oversee the voting process next time.

 

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