Battle Joined
By Linda Crawford

If the prelude to the Republican primary election is indicative of the contest to come, Bette Davis's famous remark in an altogether different context comes immediately to mind: "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

There was action related to the primaries on at least two fronts this week:

Town Republican officials backing the incumbent, Supervisor Jean Cochran, raised specific objections to 200 of the petitions filed by the challenger, Councilwoman Alice Hussie, with the county Board of Elections in order to place her name on the September ballot.

At week's end, party head Joe Sawicki said that the BOE had found 175 of the objections valid. If that number of petitions is thrown out, Ms. Hussie would fall short of the requisite signatures needed, about 335. Republican primary, R.I.P.

But Neil Tiger, the BOE's Democratic assistant commissioner, said Friday that "ultimately all of these things can be brought into court. People tossed off have three days to institute proceedings."

And "between case law and changes in the state's election procedures," he noted, there's a fairly firm idea today of what constitutes a valid objection. Examples in the present instance? Signatures of someone who's not a registered Republican or of someone who's dead, the omission of a date, of the number of signatures on a page or of an address, a petition carrier wasn't a registered Republican.

There are 20 signatures on each petition sheet and one mistake on a sheet disqualifies the entire page. But simply submitting an affidavit is often sufficient to counter such objections, according to Mr. Tiger.

Calling the backstage maneuvering "pro forma, inside stuff," Ms. Hussie said she viewed it as "just a continuation of the pettiness that began at the Republican convention, and I have the sense that it isn't playing well with the proverbial man on the street."

And she's a long way from giving the primary a graveside service. Admittedly, "it takes time and money" to respond to the objections, she said, "but we're going to do whatever we must to ensure that my name's on the ballot for a primary on Sept. 14. If people think I'll be discouraged by this, they don't know me very well."

"In our quick inspection we found many glaring errors [in the petitions]," said local Republican leader Joe Sawicki. "The mistakes were to the point that both the Republican and Democratic commissioners ruled unanimously that nearly 40 percent of [Ms. Hussie's] signatures were deficient. They can whine all they want but the law's the law. Every other candidate must conform."

Councilman John Romanelli called The Suffolk Times on Monday "to get my two cents in." His opinion: "I'm disappointed in the Republican Party. Alice has served eight years as a Republican councilwoman. I think they should have given the party members the opportunity to choose who they want for [their supervisor candidate]. All I can figure is, possibly they're afraid of what the people might decide."

Independence daze

The second front involves the Independence Party, possessor of 204 registered voters in Southold and the third line on November's ballot.

BOE filings last week indicated that five Republican candidates plan to wage Independence Party primaries against their counterparts on the local Conservative Party's fusion slate. But instead of valid Independence backing to run primaries -- in the form of what's called a Wilson-Pakula authorization -- Southold's Republican candidates, among others, will receive notice of a lawsuit being brought against them by the Independence Party's county organization.

A Wilson-Pakula authorization, issued by a party chair, grants permission to candidates to run in the party's primary, though they're not registered members.

In the absence of any local organization, Frank McKay, head of the 5-year-old Independence Party's committee, gave such authorization to Southold's Conservative Party slate, after the committee screened it and the Republican candidates. The BOE's Mr. Tiger confirmed that Mr. McKay is "the only and single party authorized" to issue Wilson-Pakulas.

"This has been litigated ad nauseum in a series of decisions by Judge Gerard D'Emilio going back to December 1998 regarding the towns vis-a-vis the county," said Mr. Tiger. "And the common theme in all of them is that only the county chairman may issue Wilson-Pakulas."

But Jack Essenberg, who's chairman of the party's state committee, a completely separate entity from the county body, issued Wilson-Pakulas to Southold's Republican slate, although "they would have no force and wouldn't be binding," Mr. Tiger said.

But they triggered the county's lawsuit, which names Mr. Essenberg and others on the state committee, BOE commissioners Edelstein and Barci, and a number of candidates from Suffolk's towns, including the entire Republican slate of Ms. Cochran, Marilyn Quintana, Rudy Bruer, Bill Moore, Craig Richter, Darline Duffy and Jimmy King.

Both Mr. McKay and Mr. Essenberg were at a Reform Party gathering in Michigan and couldn't be reached. But Carol Cris, head of the Brookhaven Town Independence Party, a member of the party's county committee, and someone who has worked closely with Mr. McKay, said the county brought the suit because Mr. Essenberg had illegally issued Wilson-Pakulas.

Mr. Essenberg, she said, "wants to run the party from the top down, and has consistently tried to keep local organizations from exercising authority over their candidates. And he has alienated a lot of people in the process."

Mr. Sawicki of the Southold GOP said the confusion is the result of a legal battle between Mr. McKay and Mr. Essenberg. "The outcome will determine who has Wilson-Pakula-issuing authority," he said.