If you consider yourself knowledgeable about politics and you believe there is a special place in Hell for those who sabotage our elections, you just may want to read up on these lesser known culprits doing that evil work right next door in Pennsylvania. Not all "theft of democracy" occurs in Florida and Ohio and not all of it is sponsored by the Republicans. Interesting stuff!
Pa. Statehouse scandal cited in Sen. ballot case
PETER JACKSON
The Associated Press
The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 16, 2008
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/20080716_ap_pastatehousescandalcitedinsenballotcase.html
HARRISBURG, Pa. - A former Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate on Wednesday asked the state's highest court to reopen his two-year-old ballot-access case because state legislative officials arrested last week on corruption charges were allegedly involved in the challenge that knocked him out of the race.
Carl Romanelli, once regarded as a threat to Democrat Bob Casey in the 2006 Senate race, and his lawyer, Lawrence Otter, want the case sent back to Commonwealth Court. There, they plan to ask a judge to dismiss a ruling requiring them to pay more than $80,000 in legal costs.
Romanelli and Otter cite grand jury allegations that state House Democratic caucus operatives directed as many as 30 taxpayer-paid employees to review signatures on Romanelli's petition in the ballot challenge that killed his candidacy.
"A democratic society can no longer function if the government is going to support candidates and suppress other candidates using its funds and resources," Samuel Stretton, the attorney for Romanelli and Otter, wrote in Wednesday's filing in the state Supreme Court.
Casey, a son of the late governor, won the election over Rick Santorum, then the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.
A Casey spokesman said the senator was not aware of any illegal activity surrounding the Romanelli ballot challenge.
"There was never any indication ... about anything like this going on," said the spokesman, Larry Smar.
In a similar challenge that prevented Ralph Nader from running in Pennsylvania as an independent presidential candidate in 2004, the grand jury alleged that as many as 50 House Democratic staffers invested "a staggering number of man-hours" in efforts to block his candidacy.
The state Supreme Court ordered Nader and running mate Peter Miguel Camejo to pay $81,000 in legal costs of the voters who challenged his signatures , a judgment that Nader is contesting in the District of Columbia courts.
Nader's lawyer, Oliver Hall, said he is weighing whether to raise the Pennsylvania corruption case in that litigation.
"We are going to aggressively pursue every avenue to oppose this judgment," Hall said. "It now appears to be clear that (the judgment) is the result of a criminal conspiracy."
State Attorney General Tom Corbett's office last week charged each of the 12 defendants with theft, conspiracy and conflicts of interest counts in an alleged wide-ranging scheme to use taxpayer-funded employees, equipment and other resources to advance their political interests.
The defendants include former Rep. Michael Veon of Beaver County, the No. 2 Democratic leader until he was ousted in the 2006 election; Mike Manzo, the former chief of staff to House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese, who has not been charged; and one sitting legislator, Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver. All the defendants are free on bail. Veon, Manzo and Ramaley have said they are innocent.
The ballot challenges left Nader and Romanelli, a railroad consultant who had been making his first bid for statewide political office, thousands of signatures shy of the number needed to qualify for their respective ballots.
Eleven Commonwealth Court judges were involved in examining Nader's petitions. Nearly two-thirds of his signatures were declared invalid, and the presiding judge cited widespread evidence of fraud that "shocks the conscience."
Democratic strategists regarded both Romanelli and Nader as spoilers who would siphon votes from the Democrats in those races.
Smar noted that Santorum's supporters provided most of the financing for Romanelli's signature-gathering effort.
"Nothing changes the fact that his signatures were invalid," said Smar.
Part of the reason for the monetary judgment against Romanelli and his lawyer was that they lacked the resources to defend themselves against the ballot challenge, Stretton said.
For example, some days they failed to muster the nine representatives that the judge wanted from each side. The Democratic State Committee, which mounted the challenge, consistently had the requisite number, he said.
"If there are going to be any fines and costs, they should be reserved for those who misused government offices and taxpayer funds in mounting this challenge," he wrote in the latest filing.
Bumped off ballot, Green Party candidate goes to court
By Tracie Mauriello
Post-Gazette (Pittsburgh), July 17, 2008
http://www.post-gazette.com
HARRISBURG -- A third-party congressional candidate filed a court petition yesterday saying he had been bumped from the ballot based on illegal work done by Harrisburg Democratic staffers who were arrested last week on corruption charges.
Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate in the 2006 U.S. Senate race, is asking the state Supreme Court to dismiss a ruling requiring him to pay $80,408 in legal costs incurred during his fight to stay on the ballot. He was bumped from the ballot after numerous signatures on his nominating petitions were challenged as invalid.
A grand jury presentment last week included evidence that those signature challenges were based on work by dozens of Democratic House employees while they were on the clock and being paid with tax dollars.
The grand jury found that staffers were similarly involved in an effort to remove former presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the 2004 ballot.
"The use of government monies to sponsor or support a candidate and/or challenge another candidate is absolutely dreadful and impermissible and a total violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution," attorney Samuel C. Stretton wrote in the petition filed yesterday on behalf of Mr. Romanelli and Larry Otter, an attorney who had represented Mr. Romanelli during the petition challenges. "A Democratic society can no longer function if the government is going to support candidates and suppress other candidates using its funds and resources."
Mr. Romanelli had been viewed as a potential spoiler who could draw votes away from Democrat Bob Casey Jr. during his 2006 race against longtime Republican Sen. Rick Santorum.
Mr. Casey's spokesman Larry Smar said he was "absolutely unaware" that legislative staffers had been put to work challenging petition signatures on the senator's behalf.
"We absolutely had no idea any of this was going on," he said. "But, as far as the ballot challenge, the names on the Romanelli petitions were still invalid, no matter what took place."
Mr. Nader and running mate Peter Camejo were seen as potential spoilers in the 2004 presidential race. House Democratic staffers were involved in petition challenges that got them removed from the ballot and assessed $81,000 in court costs in Pennsylvania.
"It seems clear that the judgment [against Mr. Nader and Mr. Camejo] was related to conduct set forth in the presentment and, for that reason, we think it is the ill-gotten fruit of a criminal conspiracy and cannot be enforced," said Nader attorney Oliver Hall. The presentment "clearly shows you have 50 state employees who are marshaled into service by a political party for the purpose of suppressing voter choice in a federal election by forcing a candidate off the ballot."
Mr. Nader and Mr. Camejo have not yet paid the $81,000 and have not decided whether to ask the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to remand the case, as Mr. Romanelli has.
Among those charged in the grand jury investigation were former House Minority Whip Mike Veon, D-Beaver Falls; Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Economy, and Michael Manzo, former chief of staff to Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese of Waynesburg.
Tracie Mauriello can be reached at tmauriello@post-gazette.com or 717-787-2141.
Letters: One Reader's View
Investigate sabotage of Nader efforts
Philadelphia Inquirer, July 17, 2008
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080717_Letters__One_Reader_s_View.html
It is unfortunate that Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman Abe Amoros used the criminal indictment of 12 prominent Pennsylvania Democrats as an occasion, once again, to defame 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and 2006 Green Party senatorial candidate Carl Romanelli ("National tie to Pa. bonus scandal," July 15).
As Amoros should know, only a tiny number of signatures on the Nader petitions - 687 or 1.3 percent of the total - were counted as "forgeries" by their signers, and in the words of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Thomas Saylor, there is "no evidence" to support Democrats' claims that the Nader campaign was even aware of such signatures. Furthermore, no allegation of fraud was ever raised against Romanelli's petitions.
There is, however, evidence that the Nader petitions were the target of widespread and deliberate sabotage: specifically, petition circulators discovered and removed about 7,000 obviously fake signatures prior to submitting the petitions.
Attorney General Tom Corbett should make it a priority to discover who was behind this unlawful conduct, and to clarify the role of the law firm mentioned in the indictment, which helped perpetrate the miscarriage of justice that denied Pennsylvanians their free choice of candidates in the 2004 presidential election.
Oliver Hall
Counsel to Ralph Nader
Washington
