A Week of Meltdowns?
If you thought Primary Day was rough on Terrible Tom Wade and the Renss Co Dems, well, the worst may be ahead. A Preview:
Vacancy Vultures
Tuesday, a hearing will be held on what may be one of the most colossal screw-ups in county election law history. Dems were in such a rush to take advantage of the Swartz tragedy that they rushed a candidate through the process, calling a meeting before the funeral and, the basis of the lawsuit, nominating the candidate before Primary Day, a clear violation of Election Law.
What has everyone scratching their heads is who is responsible for the blunder. Is it Terrible Tom Wade, who spent decades as election commissioner? Is it Wade’s successor, Ed McDonough, who is none too friendly with Boss Wade and vice versa? Is there sabotage from one side or the other? And there are whispers that NGB Town Attorney Josh Sabo was supposed to handle the research and blew it. Sabo is 0 for 64 in election law cases.
Wade sounded none too confident in his statement attempting to explain the bungling, claiming it’s all part of a vast GOP conspiracy. Maybe it goes all the way to Karl Rove? We’ll let the readers decide when we post the law tomorrow, before the hearing.
What’s Your Assessment?
Thursday, just two days after the hearing on the nominating foul-up, a parade of Dems will again be taking the stand in a grand jury proceeding. Brings back memories of the McDonough insurance scandal from the early 1990s, only this time, the subject is the shakedown of campaign contributions from Board of Elections employees by Terrible Tom. In strong-arming contributions from staffers during the holiday season – all staffers who just coincidentally voted against Boss Tom’s election as County Chairman – Boss Tom called the kickbacks “assessments”.
Staff from the BOE will be at the Court House on Thursday and we are hearing at least one employee from the Dem minority office, Susan Steele, will also be called on to testify. Insiders say Wade and Dems are worried big-time, especially since other testimony has already been scheduled from others who have been run over by his reckless and endless bullying. Updates to follow this week.
|