The Legal Beat

The Legal Beat: Illegally Filled Vacancies On Rockland County Republican Committee Voided By Court; New York Counties Can Keep Odd Year Elections, Onondaga Court Rules

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Effort to Stack The Deck To Ensure Re-election Of Incumbents Dealt A Blow By Rockland County Supreme Court

Rockland County Republican Chairman Lawrence Garvey lost a bid to stack the deck of the Rockland County Republican Committee (RCRC), dealing a blow to his attempted 2024 re-election bid.

Rockland County Supreme Court Justice Keith Cornell on Thursday denied Garvey’s request to dismiss a case that challenged the illegal appointment of 46 vacancies on the County Committee, and ruled the appointments null and void. His ruling further restrained the RCRC from making any new appointments before the reorganizational meeting takes place. No date has been set for the meeting because the same petitioners have also brought a case against the RCRC to void a bylaw that bars elected officials from serving on the Executive Committee.

On September 16, the Executive Committee of the Rockland County Republican Committee (RCRC) filled the vacancies on its County Committee in an effort to ensure Garvey will hold onto his chairman seat at the 2024 organizational meeting, according to the petitioners, Clarkstown Town Clerk Lauren Marie Wohl and Clarkstown Councilman Jon Valentino.

New York State law dictates that between the June primaries and the Organizational Meeting, the county committee is not permitted to fill vacancies.

Wohl, who is running for vice president of the committee and Valentino, who is running for secretary of the committee, along with two other petitioners, brought an earlier suit challenging the validity of a committee bylaws barring elected officials from holding leadership positions.  A group of Republicans, including many elected officials, has been dissatisfied with Garvey’s leadership of the party and are seeking to put up a yet-to-be named candidate to replace him.

Garvey, representing the Rockland County Republican Committee in court, acknowledged filling the 46 vacancies but said the challenge to the improperly filled seats was time-barred by one day. Garvey claimed a 10-day statute of limitations applied from the holding of the Executive Committee meeting where the vacancies were filled and that the petitioners filed one day too late to challenge the filling of the vacancies. He asked the Court to dismiss the court case.

Cornell rejected Garvey’s argument. He held the 10-day limitation period didn’t apply to the Executive Committee meeting where the vacancies were filled – only to those meetings where nominations or designations are made.

“A plain reading of Election Law 16-102 (2) makes it clear that the 10-day limitations period is not addressed to a party committee meeting other than one at which nominations or designations are made.” In other words, the limitation didn’t apply to the action taken at the Executive Committee meeting.

He denied Garvey’s request to dismiss the case, and turned to the merits of the petition.

In his ruling, Cornell voided the vacancies filled after the June 25th primary in accordance with state law, which says the incumbent committee doesn’t have the authority following the primary to fill vacancies.

Cornell ordered “The Rockland County Board of Elections to modify, amend, or otherwise correct its records to void any and all such records to as to assure that all of the persons purportedly filling the above-referenced vacancies shall be reflected as not being valid members of the RCRC.”

He further restrained the RCRC from filling new vacancies, holding that power belonged to the 2024 Committee, not the 2022 incumbents.

Petitioners Wohl and Valentino also filed suit last month to void a RCRC bylaw that precludes elected officials from holding seats on the RCRC Executive Committee. After their original petition was dismissed for lack of standing – the Petitioners had not actually announced their intention to run for office – Petitioners formally announced their intention to seek RCRC offices and refiled their suit. That case is still pending.

In an unrelated lawsuit, Garvey is defending his firm against allegations of negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract stemming from his mishandling of a real estate transaction for County Legislator Walter Kennelly.

Last December, Garvey was arrested by New York State Troopers after being stopped for a broken taillight; at that time he failed sobriety tests and refused a Breathalyzer test. Garvey’s driver’s license was suspended after he was arraigned in Elmsford Justice Court.

Garvey serves as part-time in-house counsel for Rockland Green earning $81,000 per year and represents the Town of Clarkstown in various cases, earning $191,000 from 2022 to date, based on FOIL-ed documents.

Last year, Garvey was a defendant in a lawsuit charging election irregularities in the selection of a candidate for Clarkstown Town Supervisor for the Republican Party.

According to Rockland County public records, a civil judgment in the amount of $23,000 was recorded against the Law Office of Lawrence Garvey in favor or New York State for failing to carry Workers Compensation Insurance from September of 2021 through December of 2022.

Also, public records also show three unsatisfied tax warrants against Lawrence Garvey’s law firm totaling over $17,000, and one tax warrant against Garvey individually in the amount of $28,000.


New York Counties Can Keep Odd Year Elections, Onondaga Court Rules

The counties of Rockland, Suffolk, Dutchess, Orange, Onondaga, Nassau and others prevailed in the Supreme Court of Onondaga County in a consolidated lawsuit challenging a state law moving elections for most local offices to even years.

The state asserted its interest in passing the “Even Year Election Law” was to increase voter turnout and reduce voter confusion, but Justice Gerard Neri of the Onondaga Supreme Court ruled that the State lacked the authority to pass the law over provisions of the New York State Constitution which protect local governments and gives them leeway to set the terms of offices locally.

Neri reviewed the various local charters of the counties participating in the suit and aside from finding the law an unconstitutional exercise of state authority, he also found that the local charters of the counties are protected by the “Savings Clause” of the state constitution, providing an alternative basis to support local home rule in the event of an appeal.

“Local governments are the most responsive and responsible to the everyday person and play a vital governance role for drinking water, social services, sewage, zoning, schools, roads, parks, police, courts, jails, trash disposal — and more- and we have a constitutional right to say how our local officials are chosen and thanks to this victory that will continue,” said County Executive Day.

On April 22, 2024, the County of Rockland filed a lawsuit against the State of New York to preserve the rights of the people of Rockland County to choose when and how often they vote to select their elected officials.

When the law was passed last December, Governor Hochul said, “By consolidating more elections in even-numbered years when most voters are already planning to participate in an election, this change will increase voter participation in important local races. Voter participation in elections held in even-numbered years in New York State is substantially higher than participation during odd-numbered years.”

Governor Hochul has a strong record of strengthening voting rights and expanding access to the ballot. In June 2022, the Governor enacted the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act, protecting New York voters against voter dilution, suppression, intimidation and other barriers to voter participation. In December 2022, the Governor enacted legislation expanding the amount of time New Yorkers have to register to vote. In September 2023, Governor Hochul signed legislation establishing a system for early voting by mail, creating a process allowing all eligible, registered New York voters the opportunity to vote early by mail in advance of an election.

This latest effort met opposition from a multitude of counties who saw it as an infringement on their sovereignty and a dilution of the importance of local issues set against larger state and federal election issues.

The full decision can be found here.