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The Democratic Party organization in the Bronx has been rocked by internal warring so intense that it has been operating in the last week with two headquarters and two leaders claiming to be the legitimate head of the party. And, for a time, neither side quite knew how to resolve the impasse. That is likely to change before long.
The group led by Assemblyman José Rivera, who has chaired the party for the last six years, filed papers in the state Supreme Court in the Bronx this morning to ask that Mr. Rivera be affirmed as the chairman of the Bronx Democratic organization.
The Rivera group is seeking to get the court to invalidate any claim by a faction of rebel elected officials to have their leaders recognized as the officers of the party. The two factions held back-to-back meetings on Sept. 28 with the rebel group electing Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie as the chairman of the party.
Jerry H. Goldfeder, the lawyer for the group led by Mr. Rivera, said that he and “and the current leadership of the Bronx County organization believe they won fair and square and that they were elected under proper procedure.”
Mr. Goldfeder added that there was a 10-day period after the party meeting under the election law to bring the matter before the court. “If it’s necessary for the court to resolve the dispute as to who won,” he said, “we had to begin a court case no later than Oct. 8.”
Those papers were filed a day after the group led by Mr. Heastie also went to court to ask to invalidate the results that declared Mr. Rivera the winner.
“At the moment, there are two sets of papers declaring two disparate sets of officers to be legitimate,” said Stanley Schlein, the lawyer for the group led by Mr. Heastie. “Someone in authority needs to make a decision on who the appropriate officers are.”
On Sept. 28, at a scheduled meeting of the Bronx Democratic Party, a group loyal to Mr. Rivera, took control and, by a voice vote, re-elected him chairman. But Mr. Heastie, who is chairman of the party committee in the Bronx, presided over a second meeting in the same site, the Utopia Paradise Theater on the Grand Concourse. At that meeting, a majority of the party’s district leaders elected Mr. Heastie as head of the party.
In recent years, Mr. Rivera has faced increasing criticism from officials who have characterized him as a divisive force among Bronx Democrats. His strength of his leadership in an organization accustomed to winning races has been questioned recently, including when the Bronx machine suffered some striking losses in the Sept. 9 primary.
The most prominent loss was in a boroughwide race for a Civil Court judgeship, in which Mr. Rivera supported Maria Matos. However, the so-called rebel group supported Elizabeth Taylor, who won by a wide margin.
Mr. Schlein said that the court has set a date of Oct. 27 to hear the case.
Tags: Assemblyman Carl E. Heastie, Assemblyman Jose Rivera, bronx, Bronx Democratic Party, Bronx Democrats, Bronx News, Bronx People, Civil Court, Elizabeth Taylor, Grand Concourse, Jerry H. Goldfeder, Maria Matos, Mr. Rivera, Politics, Supreme Court in the Bronx, Utopia Paradise TheaterRelated posts
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