{news} GP national meeting news coverage- several diffent stories

[Green Party-CT]

National convention W-B's Romanelli, then Nader,
criticize judges who stopped their bids to get on
ballots

Green Party bashes the courts

By Rory Sweeney rsweeney at timesleader.com
Staff Writer
Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, July 15, 2007
http://www.timesleader.com/news/20070715_15romanelli_ART.html


READING ? Forcefully gesturing and speaking with
obvious frustration, Carl Romanelli arguably
stole the press conference on ballot access away
from an understated, though far more renowned,
Ralph Nader on Saturday during the Green Party?s
national convention.

Perhaps it was because Romanelli?s political
wounds, stemming from a failed fight to remain on
the 2006 ballot for U.S. senator, which Bob Casey
ultimately won, are two years fresher than those
of Nader, who lost a similar fight during the
2004 presidential campaign.

Whatever the reason, Romanelli was hot, adamantly
defending the validity of the signatures he filed
and accusing state courts of corruption. He
announced plans to report two Democrat-affiliated
Commonwealth Court judges, Judge James R. Kelley
and President Judge James Gardner Colins, to the
Judicial Conduct Review Board of Pennsylvania.

?Their partisan conduct ? was reprehensible, and
the courts should be held accountable for this
hijacking,? said. Romanelli, a longtime political
activist from Wilkes-Barre.

After being bumped from the ballot, Romanelli,
along with his attorney Larry Otter, was ordered
to pay more than $80,000 in various court-related
fees. Romanelli has resolved not to pay the fees,
despite the threat that he could be jailed for
contempt.

?Though I am small, I am not weak, and I?m not
finished and I promise you, my friends, we will
prevail,? he said before abdicating the podium to
Nader.

Nader painted a similar picture including
Democratic Party determination to crush
minor-party challengers, judicial corruption or
ignorance and a broken system that punishes
people for attempting to be part of the political
process.

?Pennsylvania is now the King Kong of
ballot-access busters in the 50 states,? Nader
said. ?Philadelphia is now the center of a
judicially implemented strategy that can just
about knock off any third-party candidate ? so
this is clearly a corrupt system. This is clearly
an unconstitutional system.?

He, too, chided Colins, saying ?a first-year law
student wouldn?t have made the legal errors Judge
Colins made? and ?Judge Colins, if he?s capable
of it, should be ashamed of himself.?

The ballot access issue is perpetuated, Nader
said, by an unaware public, major parties
unwilling to share power and media indifference.

?The first thing we have to do is generate a
level of public indignation that is lacking now,?
he said, noting that independent parties have
played major roles in shaping America?s past. ?If
we liked that, we should like it in the 21st
century as well.?

Nader called for a national ballot access
standard for election to federal offices and
appointing nonpartisan committees to check
signatures instead of politically affiliated
judges.

Nader didn?t commit to a presidential run in
2008, saying he?d had to line up volunteers and
pro bono attorneys for the expected challenges.

He predicted many more failed attempts before the
issue receives the attention it requires, such as
a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, but noted
?it?s really an educational process.?


*  *  *  *  *


Nader accuses Democrats of trying to shut out
smaller parties

MICHAEL RUBINKAM 
The Associated Press
The Philadelphia Daily News, July 14, 2007
http://www.philly.com/philly/wires/ap/news/state/pennsylvania/8511477.html


READING, Pa. - Ralph Nader, appearing Saturday at
the Green Party's national convention, said he is
considering a 2008 presidential run but accused
Democrats of trying to shut smaller parties out
of the political process.

"No other country comes close to providing voters
with such a small number of choices and making
third party candidates hurdle an almost
insuperable number of obstacles just to get on
the ballot," said Nader, the Green Party's 2000
presidential nominee.

Democrats blamed Nader's candidacy for siphoning
votes from Al Gore in 2000 and throwing the
election to Republican George W. Bush. He ran as
an independent in 2004 but was removed from the
ballot in Pennsylvania and other large states
after Democrats challenged his nominating
petitions.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court later ordered
Nader and his running mate to pay more than
$80,000 of his opponents' legal costs , "the
first defendants in American legal history to be
so assessed," Nader said.

Nader said he is mulling a 2008 presidential run,
but before jumping in he would have to put
together an organization of thousands of
volunteers and pro bono lawyers to defend him
against the "Democratic quadrennial assault."

"We're going to be ready for them. We will
confront them on every level," Nader told a news
conference. "They better have clean hands."

Pennsylvania Democratic spokesman Abe Amoros
called Nader a demagogue who "played no small
part in the election of George Bush."

"People should be reminded of that every time
they turn on their televisions and see American
troops in Iraq," he said.

The issue of ballot access is a focus of this
week's Green Party convention. Party officials
said their top priority is to get their 2008
nominees for president and vice president on the
ballot in all 50 states.

Bruce Afran, a Green Party activist and attorney
who has represented Nader before the courts, said
the party will be ready for challenges to Green
candidates' nominating petitions.

"The Democrats have blown their playbook. This
can't happen twice," he said.

Nader said there should be a single federal
statute to govern ballot access for candidates
for federal office, which he said would make it
easier for independent candidates.

In Pennsylvania, which he called the "King Kong
of ballot access busters," Nader said a
nonpartisan statewide commission should hear
challenges to ballot access, not county courts
that he said had many partisan judges.

Later, addressing a few hundred conventioneers
chanting "Run Ralph Run," Nader exhorted Greens
to focus on raising money to boost their
competitiveness.

Many Republicans and Democrats believe "we're the
ones who take votes away" from them, he said.
"It's not the Republicans and Democrats in a
rigged, corrupt system who take votes away from
us."


*  *  *  *  *


Nader Mulls New Presidential Bid

Associated Press
Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2007 8:20 a.m.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118450101339966886.html


READING, Pennsylvania -- Consumer advocate Ralph
Nader told the Green Party's national convention
that he is considering a 2008 presidential run
and accused Democrats of trying to shut smaller
parties out of the political process.

"No other country comes close to providing voters
with such a small number of choices and making
third party candidates hurdle an almost
insuperable number of obstacles just to get on
the ballot," Mr. Nader, the Green Party's 2000
presidential nominee, said Saturday.

Later, addressing a few hundred conventioneers
who chanted "Run Ralph Run," Mr. Nader exhorted
Greens to focus on raising money to boost their
competitiveness.

In 2000, Nader got 2.7% of the votes in the
general election. Democrats say he siphoned votes
from the party's nominee, Al Gore, in Florida,
New Hampshire and elsewhere, giving the election
to Republican George W. Bush.

In 2004, Mr. Nader was much less of a factor. He
ran as an independent in but was removed from the
ballot in Pennsylvania and other large states
after Democrats challenged his nominating
petitions.

Mr. Nader said before jumping into the 2008
presidential race he would have to put together
an organization of thousands of volunteers and
pro bono lawyers to defend him against the
"Democratic quadrennial assault." "We're going to
be ready for them. We will confront them on every
level," Mr. Nader told a news conference. "They
better have clean hands."

Mr. Nader said there should be a single federal
statute to govern ballot access for candidates
for federal office, which he said would make it
easier for independent candidates.

Copyright ? 2007 Associated Press


*  *  *  *  *


[Democrat lawyer believes the legal system exists
to block candidates from running and to guarantee
election wins for Democrats. -- Scott]

National political digest
A weekly review of news from the world of
politics

Detroit Free Press, July 15, 2007
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070715/NEWS07/707150613/1009


Democrats want Nader to pay 2004 legal fees

Ralph Nader is worried that Pennsylvania
authorities are about to freeze his personal bank
account.

In 2004, Democrats went to court to keep him off
the state's presidential ballot after his
campaign turned in petitions with fraudulent
signatures. Now they want to collect $61,000 for
the legal fees.

Gregory Harvey, a Philadelphia lawyer who is part
of the case, said he was motivated by one thing:
"I wanted to prevent Ralph Nader from doing what
he did in Florida in 2000."

Nader said he can afford to pay "but the
necessity of a diversified electoral process
can't afford it."

"This is so embarrassing to me," Nader added.
"Not even GM did this to me."






 
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