Yang lawsuit

In Yang lawsuit, New York defends decision to cancel Democratic primary

By BILL MAHONEY

In a lawsuit brought by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a lawyer representing New York state argued on Monday that the cancellation of the state's Democratic presidential primary did not harm candidates, like Yang, who are no longer seeking the party's nomination.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew Conrad also said that forcing the state to hold the contest, which would have taken place in June, would be dangerous because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“The state will be required to deploy thousands of election workers who will be interacting with numerous members of the public in the midst of what is still an unprecedented public health crisis in the nationwide epicenter of that crisis,” Conrad said. “They’re very simply demanding that the lives of New Yorkers be put at risk for the stake of an uncontested election.”

Conrad pointed to a requirement that to bring a suit the plaintiffs would need to evince a “strong showing of irreparable harm.” That it simply doesn’t exist in this case, he said.

“If a candidate who says ‘I’m no longer seeking this nomination’ — I don’t think they can say they’ve been terribly burdened by being dropped from the ballot,” he said. “It’s really tough to say there’s harm when a candidate is no longer running, has conceded they won’t win and has endorsed the only remaining candidate.”

The state budget gave Democratic commissioners on the Board of Elections the power to remove from the ballot the names of candidates who ended their campaigns. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders subsequently suspended his candidacy, leaving former Vice President Joe Biden as the only Democrat still in the race. Last week, the commissioners removed everybody but Biden from the ballot, resulting in the cancellation of the contest.

Yang quickly sued over the cancellation, and the Southern District of New York heard arguments via a Monday afternoon conference call.

Conrad highlighted a challenge to New York’s judicial nomination process brought by Brooklyn Surrogate Court Judge Margarita López Torres, which resulted in a unanimous 2008 Supreme Court decision that found that individuals have very limited ability to challenge the way nominees are selected.

“The parties don’t even have to hold a primary if they don’t want,” Conrad said. “Whatever burden we’re talking about here is really the parties’ claim to make, and they haven’t made it.”

Yang’s lawsuit argued that the cancellation “denies voters due process and denies voters the right to vote.” His lawyers also argued that the cancellation will “[suppress] voter turnout as voters will have less incentive to vote if they cannot cast a vote for the highest office in the land,” which they claimed would harm candidates challenging incumbents. And they’ve said that canceling the primary will reduce the number of delegates pledged to candidates other than Biden, harming their ability to help shape the party platform.

On Monday’s conference call, Yang attorney Jeff Kurzon said he might add a new claim to the challenge.

“It’s important for the court to know that Mr. Yang is the first major Democratic Party Asian American candidate,” he said. “The rest of the candidates that the commissioners scrubbed from the election were also diverse candidates in terms of gender and race. And we would like to reserve our right to further amend the complaint to add Voting Rights [Act] claims.”

Judge Analisa Torres said she’d issue a decision “in due course.”