Dual Affiliations Of IPN Nominees Raise Legal Questions About Committee Appointments

By John Voket

First Selectman Pat Llodra is looking for clarity on an issue that is delaying her board from filling positions on several other local boards and commissions. The issue, which is not apparently addressed in state statutes, involves Independent Party of Newtown (IPN) supporters who retain registration with either the Democratic or Republican parties, but who are seeking to fill vacancies or openings on local boards and commissions.

Mrs Llodra told The Bee this week that several boards and commissions are “clamoring for openings to be filled,” and that the Board of Selectmen is stymied until it is determined if one’s registered political party take precedence over the individual’s nominating party when it comes to taking a seat on an appointed board.

The issue may be further complicated because in the eyes of the state, members of the IPN are classified as Independents under the Independent Party State Central, but that minor statewide party has never ratified the IPN as its local town committee.

“When you are running for an elected office on a party ticket, you are elected as a member of that party ticket no matter what political affiliation you have, Democrat, Republican, IPN, or unaffiliated,” Mrs Llodra said. “We only need to look as far as our own Board of Selectmen because by registered party, we are three Republicans. But because Bill Furrier, a Republican, won his seat as an IPN candidate, we are not in violation of our charter’s minority rule.”

But during his first selectmen’s meeting, Mr Furrier suggested that because the IPN outpaced local Democrats for seats on several local elected boards, that the party deserved to have the first right of refusal to see its supporters fill all board and commission vacancies in the future.

“We had a few people who expressed interest in serving on boards and commissions. [The IPN] would like to have the opportunity to forward candidates for open spots,” Mr Furrier said during the meeting.

After some additional discussion, Mr Furrier told his fellow selectmen, “The IPN is now the second party, we have a lot of catching up to do on all the boards and commissions.

“Just about each and every vacant position realistically should go to the IPN,” Mr Furrier said. “We have no representation on any of the boards and commissions and we are the second party now and not the third.”

“I would challenge that,” Mrs Llodra replied. “This is not a numbers game. It’s about who is best qualified to serve in these positions.”

Mrs Llodra maintained that position this week as she awaited a ruling from the town attorney as to how her board could provide an “open, fair, and honest opportunity to any number of people who fly the IPN flag, but retain another registered party affiliation.”

“I want to find a way to open the process to them, but be careful that we also fulfill both statutory and charter requirements,” Mrs Llodra added. “What does IPN mean if its nominee is still a Democrat or a Republican? This has layers of complexity.”

Searching For Clarity

The first selectman said she is hopeful the town attorney will have an answer before next Monday’s selectmen meeting when the call to fill open positions on several boards, including the high profile Parks & Recreation Commission and the Public Building and Site Commission, come up again.

Mrs Llodra said she directed the town attorney to consider both the charter and statutes.

“Both the charter and state law have to be embedded in a policy that makes common sense and is good for Newtown,” Mrs Llodra added.

Part of the complexity at the state level may be rooted in the question of whether the IPN is still a local political committee. For the purposes of recognizing the status of a voter, the state sees declared members of the IPN in the same category as registered members of the Independent Party State Central.

In March, an attorney speaking on behalf of the Secretary of the State’s Elections Division, said his office never issued confirmation validating the IPN as being a local town committee of the state Independent Party.

Secretary of the State attorney Bernard Liu said that until such a time that IPN puts up or endorses a statewide candidate for office, the Newtown-based contingent will be viewed as a separate political entity from the statewide Independent Party. He further clarified that even the Independent Party State Central has not achieved the goal of getting its party’s candidates on the ballots in every town in Connecticut.

Contacted this week, Mr Liu said that status was unchanged.

Michael J. Telesca, then a Waterbury alderman and one of two co-agents of the state Independent Party, told The Bee March 18 that he verbally informed IPN members in 2007 that fulfilling the bylaws of the state party was “a formality.” Nonetheless, Mr Telesca said the Independent Party of Newtown was never formally accepted as a local town committee under the state party’s bylaws.

Mr Telesca said he never sent IPN’s proposed rules or bylaws for approval, and those bylaws never received a two-thirds majority vote of the Independent Party State Central, which is required by the state party’s rules.

Bruce Walczak, a town police commissioner and IPN chairman, revised a set of bylaws with the town on behalf of the aspiring minor party on May 22, after the State Independent Party Central Committee failed to meet to endorse the local party as an affiliate.

In a cover letter addressed to a Secretary of the State’s office contact, Mr Walczak wrote: “The Independent Party of Newtown would like to completely withdraw our Bylaw [sic] which were submitted in January 2009. These Bylaw were subject to the Independent Party of CT Central Committee accepting them. The Central Committee has not met and thus these Bylaw have never been accepted.”

At the time, town registrars said by retooling the IPN bylaws, any of the 164 registered Independent voters in Newtown who may seek to participate or seek elected office this fall must conform to the rules being set forth by the IPN. This, even if a resident’s affiliation with the Independent Party precedes the establishment of the IPN, which grew out of an education advocacy interest group called WeCAN (We Care About Newtown).

The purpose and objectives of the IPN states, however, that the minor party is “open to all electors...” and is “...committed to cooperating with all local political parties...”

Mr Walczak said at the time “that there are a lot of people requesting to participate with the IPN.”

“Whether they are registered as Democrat or Republican, they might chose to have their feet in both camps locally,” he said. “We won’t require them to [relinquish] their major party affiliation.”

Mr Walczak said he suggested to the town attorney that if endorsements come from IPN, those contenders should be considered unaffiliated.

At the December 7 selectmen’s meeting, Town Attorney David Grogins weighed in, telling the selectmen that they need to make distinctions between midterm vacancies and those opening up because of term expirations.

“By charter, appointed terms for boards and commissions start on January 7, and the issue of parties is only tied to minority representation,” he said. “We have an anomaly, which is three parties, and the charter is going to have to address this issue.”

Mr Walczak said he posed in a subsequent email to Mr Grogins that the local charter does not even defines what constitutes being in a political party.

“It’s pretty vague,” Mr Walczak said, adding that depending on the decision, he might consider taking the matter to court.

“If the ruling seems restrictive, we may have to look at that — although we don’t have very much money to [contest the matter in legally)],” he said. “If it restricted collaboration and inclusion, we’d have to see about that.”