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IP NEWS
February 4, 2000
ALBANY- If groundhogs follow politics, then at least six more weeks of
litigation is likely to result from a stormy series of meetings Friday
that resulted in the removal of IP State Chair Jack R. Essenberg for
corruption and disloyalty and the election of Frank MacKay of Babylon,
Long Island as new party chief.
Efforts to remove Essenberg and five other members of the party's
Executive Committee have been ongoing for months with Essenberg dodging
the removal bullet through legal maneuvers by attorney Thomas Spargo, a
GOP law ace specializing in finding ways to limit the spread of democracy.
At a State Committee meeting slated for today, Spargo orchestrated the
signing of a court order restraining the committee from acting until a 3PM
hearing, which was also the time Spargo and Essenberg had arranged for
Committee members to be expelled from the ritzy Steuben Club. The unusual
action by a judge to restrain political speech caught many First Amendment
fans off guard.
However, after all the State Committee members who got the boot trekked to
court on Eagle St., a few blocks away, another judge lifted the order and
the Committee reconvened at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, where they quickly
voted to remove Essenberg and replace him with MacKay.
It is expected the action will be ignored by Essenberg who has financed a
cling-to-office campaign by regular shakedowns of State Legislators who
pay the party for cross endorsements.
More trips to the courtroom are expected, but for now the party's new
chair is pledging adherence to the party's rules which guarantee local
control of the nominating process.
Chairman MacKay also pledged full disclosure of party finances, something
not done by Essenberg, who wouldn't allow the elected Treasurer access to
the books.
Essenberg sat stone-faced with a patrician, royalty-among-the-rabble air,
as stifled state committee members crowded the court room late Friday
afternoon. Supreme Court Justice Malone seemed to weigh the plight of the
crowd as he decided the restraint of political speech was too big a
constitutional price just to placate attorney Spargo.
Ironically, Spargo and Essenberg's effort to stymie democracy in the
Independence Party comes on the same day news spread of top Republicans
deciding to open up their primary to presidential hopeful, Sen. John
McCain. "Perhaps the seepage of fair play into the GOP process left
Spargo with a void
in his life, that's why he tried to trash the First Amendment today at the
Steuben Club," said one IP member upon observing the day's events. |
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