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The Independence Party is a political party in the U.S. state of New York. The party was founded in 1991 by Dr. Gordon Black, Tom Golisano and Laureen Oliver from Rochester, New York, and acquired ballot status in 1994. Although the party is often associated with Ross Perot, and came to prominence in the wake of Perot's 1992 presidential campaign, the party was actually created prior to Perot's run. As of 2005, there were 328,572 members statewide.

Leadership

The chairman of the Independence Party of New York is Frank MacKay, who is also leader of the party in Suffolk County.

Power struggles

The party has seen several major internal struggles. In 1997, the founding Chair, Laureen Oliver, declined to run again as State Chair and went on to be the party's State Secretary. She was succeeded by Suffolk County Chair Jack Essenberg. Essenberg had a tendency to run the party autocratically, and actually took the Richmond County chair, Thomas William Hamilton, to court to block his forming a recognized county committee, as this would have allowed the local people the sole voice in who could run locally on the party line. When Essenberg lost this case, Richmond, Jefferson, and Suffolk Counties formed county committees. Suffolk ousted Essenberg as County Chair, electing Frank MacKay, who became State Chair when much of the party united in rebellion against Essenberg. Since the summer of 2005, it has seen an internal factional struggle between followers of Marxist psychotherapist Fred Newman based in New York City and non-ideological party members and leaders in upstate New York and on Long Island.

History

The unexpectedly strong showing of Ross Perot in the 1992 U.S. presidential election raised the profile of political independents in the country and led to centrist political parties in many states. The Independence Party of New York had been founded in 1991, but rode to prominence on this wave, achieving ballot status in New York in 1994. The Independence Party is not associated with the Reform Party of the United States, which was directly founded by Perot in 1995.

In the elections for Governor of New York in 1994, 1998, and 2002, the party's candidate was businessman Tom Golisano, who had been the most important person in the party's founding. His personal wealth enabled him to mount well-funded campaigns. In each election, he finished in third place, far ahead of all other candidates not running on the Democratic or Republican ballot lines. Because Golisano received more than 50,000 votes each time, the party was each time guaranteed an automatic ballot line for the following four years and has enjoyed the third line on the ballot continuously since the end of the 1998 gubernatorial election cycle.

In the 2000 elections Newman initially backed Reform Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan but then switched to Natural Law candidate John Hagelin as a result of squabbles between Newman's faction and the Buchanan campaign. Hagelin was eventually chosen as the party's nominee over Ralph Nader. While New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani was considered for the party's U.S. Senate nomination, the party ended up endorsing party member and Watertown Mayor Jeff Graham against Hillary Clinton and Rick Lazio when Giuliani did not run.

In 2001 the party endorsed Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire Republican candidate for mayor of New York City. He offered each of the five county organizations within the City $5000, which all but Staten Island (Richmond County), still led by Hamilton, accepted. He also created his own independent ballot line, which he named the Students First Party, that was merged with the Independence Party's line on the ballot. The votes he received on the combined Independence Party/Students First Party ballot line, which counted toward his total under New York's fusion rule, exceeded his margin of victory over Democrat Mark J. Green, who also appeared on the Working Families Party line. It is theoretically possible, though not necessarily probable, that Bloomberg would have lost the election without the Independence Party endorsement. The following year, the New York City Industrial Development Agency approved an $8.7 million bond to help finance a new headquarters for a youth charity controlled by Newman and Lenora Fulani, Newman's chief spokesperson and the party's best-known public figure except for Golisano. The bond came to be seen by much of the media as a reward from the mayor as well as an incentive from Governor George Pataki (see below) to obtain Newman and Fulani's support for his reelection campaign.

In 2002, Golisano again sought the party's gubernatorial nomination. Although Pataki won the endorsement of the Newman-influenced IP state convention, with the full support of party Chair Frank MacKay, in May (only four days after final approval of the IDA bond), Golisano supported by Party Founder Laureen Oliver and many of the orginial founder members launched a primary challenge and achieved victory in September by a narrow margin. During the campaign, Golisano charged that Pataki's supporters had filed thousands of fraudulent Independence Party registrations in an attempt to marginalize upstate New York's already limited power in state government and to undermine Golisano's threat to the Republican power-base. In the primary battle and in the general election, Pataki was supported by MacKay and followers of Newman within the IP, including Fulani.

In 2004 the party endorsed Ralph Nader in his independent bid for president. Nader also petitioned for an independent line, which he named the Peace and Justice Party.

With the approach of the 2005 elections for municipal offices, Bloomberg gave the Newman-controlled Manhattan branch of the party $250,000 to fund a phone bank seeking to recruit volunteers for Bloomberg's re-election campaign.

On May 28 2005, the Independence Party endorsed Michael Bloomberg for re-election. Bloomberg won by a wide margin. During the campaign a consulting outfit controlled by the Newman wing of the party received an additional $180,000 as a Bloomberg campaign subcontractor, according to the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

Fulani and other Newman followers were ousted from the party's state executive committee in September 2005 as a result of media controversy over Fulani's refusal on cable news channel NY1 to disavow her now-infamous 1989 statement that Jews are "mass murderers of people of color." Their opponents on the state executive committee received proxies from 75 percent of all state committee members for this move. But Fulani — whose comrades called the purge racist, sexist, McCarthyistic and even anti-Semitic — continues to be active in the party's Newman-controlled New York City machine, which is run on Newman's behalf by New York County chairperson Cathy Stewart and party strategist Jacqueline Salit. The New York City organization remains the most influential of the party's factions because of its small army of hard-working volunteers and the financial support it has received from prominent politicians and from Newman's own political and psychotherapy base.

On February 4 2006, the Executive Committee of the Independence Party of the State of New York dissolved the Interim County Organizations of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx which had been controlled by Newman and Fulani. It stated in its resolution that the action was a result of the anti-Semitism and racism espoused by Fulani and Newman, which are antithetical to the principals of the Independence Party. One week later an attempt was made to suspend the chair of the Staten Island IP, a member of the Fulani group. The attempt was made at a meeting held during a blizzard, attended only by two IP members and a Young Republican. The resulting court action saw the Chair remaining in office, but giving the opposing faction the right to make party endorsements for several local offices in the 2006 election. Although the "Newmanites" still control the Manhattan county organization, the recent revolt has probably ended their ability to influence the selection of the party's nominees anywhere in New York State except the borough of Manhattan.

On June 4 2006, the State Chairman, Frank MacKay, started dis-enrollment hearings against Fred Newman, Lenora Fulani, and almost 140 of their followers from the party, in order to seize control of the New York City county organizations. Three different judges, in three different counties, repudiated MacKay’s efforts to dis-enroll Fulani, Newman and the other 140 New York City leaders and activists.

In July 2006, more than 4,000 New York City Independence Party members created duly constituted County Committees in Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan, so that the State Chair could not take away local control in New York City.

In Nov 2006, Eliot Spitzer received over 190,661 votes on the Independence Party line, more than enough to secure the party's spot on Row “C” for the next four years. Also, 19% of those votes were produced by the New York City organization.

References

1. "Mayor hires Indys to hunt volunteers". New York Daily News. 2005-01-05. Retrieved 2006-12-16. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help); Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |work= (help)
2. Text of the resolution accessed 16 December 2006

External links

• The Independence Party of New York County website
• Unofficial website
• Unofficial website of the Bronx, Candidate for 77th AD State Committee
• Ex-iwp.org's archive of articles critical of Newman-Fulani wing of party

• United States regional and state political parties
• Politics of New York