The Sundwall Petitions
My old friend Eric Sundwall (he's not that old) is running for Congress in NY's 20th district. That's where the supposedly hot race is going on between Sweeney and Gillibrand.
His petitions were filed and now some "objections" have been filed to his petitions. Eric called me and I offered to represent him for free, hopefully to keep him on the ballot. He's worked awfully hard for this.
So we started looking into the "objections". Three people filed them: Fay V. Johnson, Jr., of Hudson; Olivia Paulsen of (ostensibly) Clifton Park) and Christine Brownson, also of Clifton Park.
Then we checked at the Board of Elections to see who had inspected the petitions. Only one person requested a viewing -- Thomas Spargo of East Berne. I believe this is the same Tom Spargo who is a well-known Republican election lawyer, and a former judge in Albany County Supreme Court.
Before I go forward with the story, I have to say that I am quite fond of Tom. I think his "defrocking" was a witch hunt. He's a fine lawyer, a gentleman, and he was a great judge. I will say some things below that could be seen as critical of him. That would be misreading what I say. He's doing his job. I disagree with the way he's doing it, but he's been doing election law a lot longer than I have.
Moving on, Tom signed an "application" to view Sundwall's petitions on August 25th. His application indicated he was viewing them on his "own behalf." Since no one else viewed the petitions, it's quite odd that Mr. Johnson, Ms. Paulsen and Mrs. Brownson objected. How could they know enough to make any kind of objection? Objections have to be backed by "specific objections." We understand these have been filed, but the Board of Elections wouldn't show them to us today. But how could they know enough to make specific objections if they haven't read the petitions?
I did some research on our three mysterious friends. Mr. Johnson is registered to vote in both Greene and Columbia counties. He registered in Catskill (Greene) in June of 2003 and in Hudson (Columbia) in October of 2004. His Catskill registration even lists his mailing address as the Hudson address. Mr. Johnson was born in 1978, making him about 28 years old. I can't find any other voter registration for him before 2003, so he didn't register to vote until age 25. Odd for such a person to be motivated enough to object to petitions he hasn't seen.
Turning to Christine Brownson and Olivia Paulsen, both live in Clifton Park. Brownson and her husband own a Mobil gas station in New Baltimore (Greene County) through their corporation, Brownson Enterprises. I'd guess they own other things or do other things, but I'm not sure. Her husband was, at least in 1998, the president of the Gasoline Retailers Association of New York. Looks like he is or was a longtime board member of that group.
Paulsen appears to be a student (and a good one - on the dean's list) at Siena College. Siena, you'll note, is in Albany County and is not in the 20th district. Paulsen is registered to vote in Clifton Park (in the 20th district) at what is apparently her parents' home, but one wonders if she actually lives in Clifton Park or at Siena. That last one's not a big deal, but still curious. Anyway, her father apparently owns Eagle Crest Golf Course in Clifton Park.
With both Brownson and Paulsen, I still wonder what motivated them to object to Sundwall's petitions. I can't see that either of them has ever done anything political. Paulsen is barely old enough to vote.
Doing a little more research, I wanted to check up on why Tom Spargo is checking out Sundwall's petitions. I had my suspicions, and they were confirmed when I checked Rep. John Sweeney's campaign finance filings. In July and August his campaign spent over $16,000 on legal fees to none other than Thomas Spargo of East Berne. Hmm. Now it's all starting to come together.
Another interesting tidbit - all three objections were filed at exactly the same time on August 28th (4:12 pm, I think). So they must have all three come in together at the same time.
Let's see. Tom Spargo is working for John Sweeney. Tom Spargo is the only person to have reviewed Sundwall's petitions. But wait. Spargo in applying to review Sundwall's petitions, checked off that he was doing so on his "own behalf". Unless that statement was inaccurate (I can't call it a lie, can I?), he couldn't have been reviewing the petitions for Sweeney or for the objectors.
Quite a mystery.
So I faxed a letter to the Board of Elections today (9/1/06) advising them that I represent Eric and that we want the Board to inquire into whether these objections are genuinely from the persons alleged to have signed them. We'll see where that goes.
In the end, you have to wonder why Sweeney is going to such lengths to hide the fact that he's the one trying to knock Sundwall off the ballot. It's the kind of dishonest behavior that's common among political insiders like Sweeney, McNulty and Gillibrand. Remember that both McNulty and Sweeney were caught funneling campaign contributions to their family members. All three of them receive huge contributions from PACs and other special interests.
His petitions were filed and now some "objections" have been filed to his petitions. Eric called me and I offered to represent him for free, hopefully to keep him on the ballot. He's worked awfully hard for this.
So we started looking into the "objections". Three people filed them: Fay V. Johnson, Jr., of Hudson; Olivia Paulsen of (ostensibly) Clifton Park) and Christine Brownson, also of Clifton Park.
Then we checked at the Board of Elections to see who had inspected the petitions. Only one person requested a viewing -- Thomas Spargo of East Berne. I believe this is the same Tom Spargo who is a well-known Republican election lawyer, and a former judge in Albany County Supreme Court.
Before I go forward with the story, I have to say that I am quite fond of Tom. I think his "defrocking" was a witch hunt. He's a fine lawyer, a gentleman, and he was a great judge. I will say some things below that could be seen as critical of him. That would be misreading what I say. He's doing his job. I disagree with the way he's doing it, but he's been doing election law a lot longer than I have.
Moving on, Tom signed an "application" to view Sundwall's petitions on August 25th. His application indicated he was viewing them on his "own behalf." Since no one else viewed the petitions, it's quite odd that Mr. Johnson, Ms. Paulsen and Mrs. Brownson objected. How could they know enough to make any kind of objection? Objections have to be backed by "specific objections." We understand these have been filed, but the Board of Elections wouldn't show them to us today. But how could they know enough to make specific objections if they haven't read the petitions?
I did some research on our three mysterious friends. Mr. Johnson is registered to vote in both Greene and Columbia counties. He registered in Catskill (Greene) in June of 2003 and in Hudson (Columbia) in October of 2004. His Catskill registration even lists his mailing address as the Hudson address. Mr. Johnson was born in 1978, making him about 28 years old. I can't find any other voter registration for him before 2003, so he didn't register to vote until age 25. Odd for such a person to be motivated enough to object to petitions he hasn't seen.
Turning to Christine Brownson and Olivia Paulsen, both live in Clifton Park. Brownson and her husband own a Mobil gas station in New Baltimore (Greene County) through their corporation, Brownson Enterprises. I'd guess they own other things or do other things, but I'm not sure. Her husband was, at least in 1998, the president of the Gasoline Retailers Association of New York. Looks like he is or was a longtime board member of that group.
Paulsen appears to be a student (and a good one - on the dean's list) at Siena College. Siena, you'll note, is in Albany County and is not in the 20th district. Paulsen is registered to vote in Clifton Park (in the 20th district) at what is apparently her parents' home, but one wonders if she actually lives in Clifton Park or at Siena. That last one's not a big deal, but still curious. Anyway, her father apparently owns Eagle Crest Golf Course in Clifton Park.
With both Brownson and Paulsen, I still wonder what motivated them to object to Sundwall's petitions. I can't see that either of them has ever done anything political. Paulsen is barely old enough to vote.
Doing a little more research, I wanted to check up on why Tom Spargo is checking out Sundwall's petitions. I had my suspicions, and they were confirmed when I checked Rep. John Sweeney's campaign finance filings. In July and August his campaign spent over $16,000 on legal fees to none other than Thomas Spargo of East Berne. Hmm. Now it's all starting to come together.
Another interesting tidbit - all three objections were filed at exactly the same time on August 28th (4:12 pm, I think). So they must have all three come in together at the same time.
Let's see. Tom Spargo is working for John Sweeney. Tom Spargo is the only person to have reviewed Sundwall's petitions. But wait. Spargo in applying to review Sundwall's petitions, checked off that he was doing so on his "own behalf". Unless that statement was inaccurate (I can't call it a lie, can I?), he couldn't have been reviewing the petitions for Sweeney or for the objectors.
Quite a mystery.
So I faxed a letter to the Board of Elections today (9/1/06) advising them that I represent Eric and that we want the Board to inquire into whether these objections are genuinely from the persons alleged to have signed them. We'll see where that goes.
In the end, you have to wonder why Sweeney is going to such lengths to hide the fact that he's the one trying to knock Sundwall off the ballot. It's the kind of dishonest behavior that's common among political insiders like Sweeney, McNulty and Gillibrand. Remember that both McNulty and Sweeney were caught funneling campaign contributions to their family members. All three of them receive huge contributions from PACs and other special interests.
posted by Albany Lawyer at 11:20 PM
1 Comments:
Spargo is a crook of a familiar Republican type. His actions in Florida in 2000 were unethical, and he also was involved in blackmailing Scott Ritter with the illegal release of information from a sealed case.
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