In a representative democracy, the call to serve should be held up as the nobelest and most humble of endeavors, a chance to stand up for your peers and participate in the grandest democratic experiment in human history.
If you live in Queens, though, you might as well forget it: the two parties want nothing to do with you and your pitiful little quest for higher office. Take the example of one Justin Wax Jacobs, a recent college graduate from my alma mater SUNY Albany.
In just under one week, Jacobs and about 10 of his volunteers had collected more than 1,600 signatures. After being told by the Queens Democrats that there wasn’t time to interview him to determine whether he could be a viable candidate for the party as they instead chose Michael Simanowitz, a former aide to Mayersohn, Jacobs was ecstatic that he might still be able to make a bid for the seat that represents the neighborhood where he has lived nearly his entire life.
Then, however, the city Board of Elections ruled last week that Jacobs’ signatures were invalid because he had not written the number of the Assembly district on top of each page of signatures.
“I followed the New York laws and rules regarding the Independence nomination, and I did everything that the petition form from the Board of Elections said to do,” Jacobs said. “Nowhere on the sample form did it say I had to have the Assembly district number on top of every single page. It’s upsetting.”
New York's election laws have been carefully crafted over the years to disincentivize running for office unless you are the hand-picked chosen candidate of the political bosses, a rich tradition dating back to the days of Boss Tweed and Tamany Hall. In addition, draconian and obscure regulations guarantee the employ a legion of lawyers throughout the five boroughs. It's a perfect symbiotic system that ensures those in power remain right where they are, and that those who benefit from the arrangement continue to do so.
Oh, and what of the Republican candidate in the special election slated for September 13, a mere month away? Dude's Web site is devoid of any information -- even the "press" button is just an e-mail link, and his Twitter and Facebook pages have exactly zero posts between them.
And you wonder why our state is close behind the nation in impending financial doom.
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