On May 18 the Save America Movement -- SAM -- Party of New York filed a motion for a preliminary injunction in Federal Court, seeking to stop enforcement of a new ballot access law that would deprive it of its official status as a party in New York unless it runs a Presidential candidate in the upcoming November 2020 election.

In support of the requested preliminary injunction, SAM-NY and SAM-NY Chairman Michael Volpe argue that the Presidential candidacy requirement contained in New York’s newly amended election law violates the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of SAM-NY and its members.

“New York recently made it much harder for an organization to qualify as a ‘party’ under its Election Laws,” the plaintiffs argue in their motion. “SAM and Volpe bring this action to declare the Presidential-election requirement unconstitutional as applied to SAM, and here seek a preliminary injunction to prevent Defendants from stripping SAM of its 'party' status after the November 2020 Presidential election.”

In 2018, the SAM-NY party ran candidates for Governor and Lt. Governor that received 55,041 votes, exceeding the threshold then required to give SAM-NY party status and automatic ballot status for four years, through 2022.

On April 3, however, New York law was changed and now requires any political party to receive greater than 2 percent of the votes cast or 130,000 votes, in the upcoming Presidential election, in order to hold onto its party status.

SAM-NY, which is affiliated with the national Serve America Movement, says in its filing that it has no intention or desire to run a candidate for President in 2020 and cannot constitutionally be forced to do so.

Ballot-access expert Richard Winger, publisher and editor of Ballot Access News, submitted a declaration in support of the injunction. Winger explained that “New York’s Presidential-election requirement places New York at the extreme of the ballot-access requirements of the 50 states. Requiring a political ‘party’ to participate in a Presidential election is extremely rare, and is among the most severe burdens placed on political organizations in this country.”

SAM-NY Chairman Volpe, in his declaration said, “[t]o have a chance to establish name and brand recognition as a ‘new kind of party’ and avoid getting prematurely embroiled in, or associated with one side or the other of, the ideological divide, SAM intends to continue to forego espousing substantive positions and nominating candidates for President.”

Volpe added that “the likelihood of a new candidate getting the greater of 2 percent of the vote or 130,000 votes in a hotly contested election is nearly zero.”

SAM-NY member and Assembly candidate Evelyn Wood filed a declaration in support of the motion.

“I understand that because SAM will not run a candidate for President it will lose its ‘party’ status after the November 2020,” Wood wrote. “That will only discourage qualified candidates for running for office and limit political discourse in the State.

"SAM’s ‘party’ status allows people like me, who are dissatisfied with the angry rhetoric of the major parties, to seek public office to represent people who are similarly dissatisfied with our politics today.”

SAM also argued that the newly adopted requirement of running a Presidential candidate is an unconstitutional burden for a brand new state party. According to the papers filed in support of the motion, the only justification ever suggested for requiring parties in New York to run candidates for President is that the new mandate is necessary to protect the solvency of a new public campaign finance system also established by the new law.

But, as SAM-NY pointed out, the new campaign finance system does not apply to federal candidates, let alone Presidential candidates. And the new restrictions on parties come into effect immediately while the new public finance provisions do not come into effect until Nov. 9, 2022, after the next Gubernatorial election.

SAM-NY offers New Yorkers a different approach to governing focused on transparency and accountability, rather than on ideology, and empowers its candidates and elected officials to serve the needs of their constituents and not be controlled by inflexible left/right political positions that are increasingly partisan.

Visit joinsamny.org for more information.

The New York political party known at Serve America Movement -- SAM-NY -- filed a lawsuit today in United States District Court for the Southern District of New York against Gov. Andrew Cuomo, state legislators and NYS Board of Election over ballot access law.

The court encompasses the counties of New York, Bronx, Westchester, Putnam, Rockland, Orange, Dutchess, and Sullivan but the lawsuit, since it's filed in Federal Court, is statewide.

The new political party claims requirements are unconstitutional.

SAM-NY alleges the major political parties strive to eliminate political competition in New York State.

A new state election law would require all of New York State’s political parties to run a Presidential candidate in this year’s election (2020) and receive 2 percent of the total vote or 130,000 votes, whichever is greater, in order to maintain their statewide ballot line.

SAM-NY’s lawsuit alleges that the new law, in effect after the issuance of a report by the Campaign Finance Reform Commission (“the Commission”), is a violation of the party’s and its members’ Constitutional rights.

To read the legal complaint, click here.

“Requiring the SAM Party of New York to nominate a candidate for President or lose ‘party’ status imposes a severe burden” on SAM and its members, the complaint alleges. “In imposing that requirement, the Commission’s recommendations, now law, violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.”

SAM’s lawsuit seeks to bar enforcement of that requirement against SAM and to ensure that SAM is not removed from the ballot or stripped of its “party” status if it does not run a 2020 presidential candidate.

Prior to the new law, to qualify for automatic ballot access in New York State, a party must have received at least 50,000 votes in the prior gubernatorial election. In the 2018 Gubernatorial election, SAM earned a ballot line for four years by getting more than 50,000 votes for Governor.

SAM quickly capitalized on that ballot line, running 100+ candidates in 2019, with 51 of those candidates winning their elections to offices in 21 counties across New York State.

In 14 of those races, SAM represented the alternative party of choice, and in seven races it received more votes than at least one of the two major parties. SAM’s early success in earning ballot access and winning elections demonstrates its appeal to New York voters as an alternative choice to the Democratic and Republican parties.

The new presidential-vote requirement, which was imposed without review or a vote in the Legislature, denies SAM its previously earned ability to build a new political party from the ground up focused solely on New York, and threatens to halt the success it has quickly achieved.

“Everything about this effort to suppress political competition, including how it was enacted, represents how the current two-party system wields its power to rig the system in its favor,” says Michael Volpe, the SAM Party of New York’s chairman, and SAM’s candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2018.

“With the imposition of this requirement, New Yorkers are denied the ability to choose candidates who are willing to be held accountable for their actions, candidates who oppose party power politics and demand transparency in all decisions, and candidates who at all times require that decisions be made based on the needs of citizens and not the needs of party bosses.”

“We’ll fight this effort by Governor Cuomo and his handpicked Commission with everything we have," Volpe said. "It threatens the very existence of challenges to the status quo and efforts to better represent the interests of all New Yorkers. It’s undemocratic, unconstitutional, unfair and has been cooked up solely to serve the interests of those who control our broken political system."

SAM-NY is the newest political party in New York State, offering New Yorkers a different approach to governing focused on transparency and accountability, rather than on ideology. SAM, short for the Serve America Movement, empowers its candidates and elected officials to serve the needs of their constituents and not be controlled by inflexible left/right political positions that are increasingly partisan.

Visit joinsamny.org for more information.