This piece was submitted to the Democratic & Chronicle as an editorial before the July 18 meeting described herein.
It is customary for newly appointed elected officials to defend their incumbency at the next opportunity. Judge Latoya Lee, who was appointed to Rochester City Court in February, did just that in the June 28 primary. Judge Lee competed for the Democratic designation, gathered thousands of signatures, campaigned in the primary election, and finished in first place out of the 4 candidates, virtually assuring her election in November.
In May, another vacancy in the Rochester City Court was created by Gov. Kathy Hochul’s appointment of Judge Stephen Miller to the Court of Claims. But due to the timing of Judge Miller’s appointment, voters will be denied the opportunity to decide who will round out the slate of Democratic candidates for the November election. Instead, members of the County Committee will make the decision at a July 18 Special Meeting. To put numbers to it, fewer than 900 Committee members will vote on behalf of the approximately 69,000 Democrats who are registered to vote in the City of Rochester. The process is blatantly undemocratic, and given that the candidates elected in November will serve 10-year terms, will have consequences for many years to come.
To his credit, Mayor Malik Evans waited for the results of the primary election before appointing a replacement for Judge Miller. When he did so, he appointed Van White, citing his third-place finish in the June 28 primary. In so doing, Mayor Evans’s appointment reflected the will of the electorate. Judge Lee, the top finisher in the primary, is already on the City Court; and the second place finisher is virtually guaranteed to be elected in November. The primary election process is not perfect, but with more than 10 times as many ballots cast as the County Committee possibly could muster, it is the best available approximation of the will of the electorate. Furthermore, if the Democratic Committee were to select a candidate who did not participate in this year’s primary, that person will have bypassed the requirement to petition onto the ballot or campaign in the primary election. Viewed through that lens, the best outcome we could hope for in an imperfect system would be for the Committee to affirm Mr. Evans’s appointment of Mr. White to City Court Judge.
Underpinning this undemocratic saga is that due to a recent change to New York State Election Law, the County Committee voting on this important question is the outgoing “lame duck” Committee and not the incoming Committee who circulated petitions in the winter and, in some cases, won contested primary elections on June 28. Until a few years ago, the State and County Committee reorganization were required to be within 15 and 20 days of the primary election, respectively; but when the state and local primary elections were moved from September to June, the Legislature took pains to ensure that the timing of the State and County Committees’ reorganization would remain in the fall. With this change in election law, which names specific date changes of September 17 through early October, the “lame duck” period where outgoing Committee members can continue to exercise their power was increased from a few weeks to several months.
In light of this undemocratic episode in Rochester history, there are several questions we should be asking: first, was the timing of Judge Miller’s appointment calculated to subvert our democratic processes? Secondly, does election law provide for a special election instead of a nomination by the Committee? (Ed.: It does not.) And finally, should New York State election law be reformed to reduce the length of time that the lame duck State and County Committees exercise their power after the primary election?