2 political caucuses are challenged on Kenmore judicial endorsements
A State Supreme Court challenge has been initiated regarding two of the political caucuses held earlier this month in the Village of Kenmore.
Kevin T. Stocker, a candidate for village justice, set the legal wheels in motion Thursday with a filing in the Erie County clerk’s office. A judge and a court date have not yet been assigned.
Earlier last week, Stocker’s objections fell flat at the Erie County Board of Elections.
“Both of them were rejected,” Democratic Commissioner Dennis E. Ward said Friday. The decisions were reached by Ward and his Republican counterpart, Ralph M. Mohr.
The objections involved certificates of nomination filed by the Democratic and Independence parties after the Sept. 15 caucuses. Stocker won the Republican and Conservative lines in the caucuses, and he also established an independent line, Tax Payers 1st, on which he is running.
The Democratic and Independence lines were won by registered Democrat Scott F. Riordan, a private attorney who was appointed village prosecutor late last year. Riordan was appointed to succeed Stocker.
The winner in the November election will fill the year remaining on the term of Mark J. Gruber, who was elected a Tonawanda town justice last fall.
Stocker says the Independence caucus commenced earlier than scheduled, barring additional participants who could have swayed the vote in his favor. The vote of those present was 4-3 in Riordan’s favor.
The Board of Elections determined that Stocker, a registered Republican, “lacks standing as an objector to challenge the internal affairs of a political party in the making of a nomination.”
The other objection related to the participation of Kenmore Republican Chairman Patrick J. Bannister and his wife, Tracey, in the Democratic caucus.
Stocker contends that both are judges and are prohibited from engaging in politics, under state judicial ethics regulations.
Patrick J. Bannister was described by Stocker as an administrative law judge for the state. “I’m not an ALJ — I’m a conciliator,” Bannister responded.
His wife is an acting Kenmore village justice and a confidential law clerk for Appellate Division Justice Jerome C. Gorski, as well as a candidate for State Supreme Court justice.
Election commissioners found: “Persons employed by the judicial system are not precluded by virtue of their employment from participation in a party caucus which substitutes for the casting of a vote at a primary election.”
