IPN Reworks Bylaws After State Party Fails To Act

By John Voket

Bruce Walczak, a town police commissioner and chairman of the Independent Party of Newtown (IPN), filed a revised 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 writes: “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.”

The cover letter also acknowledges that the minor party, which placed party-endorsed candidates in two council positions, as well as one school board and one police commission spot in the 2007 elections, must petition for any other seats its members may seek in the 2009 municipal election.

According to town registrars, 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 special 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 told The Newtown Bee 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.”

According to the bylaws, membership in IPN can be achieved at two levels, either as a town committee participant or as a supporting member. A supporting member, who has no voting rights at IPN Committee meetings, simply needs to pay an “annual contribution” of $25 to become affiliated.

In cases of financial hardship, the contribution may be waived by the treasurer.

A town committee member must meet a minimum attendance requirement of four or at least half of the meetings conducted per year, pay the annual contribution, and must be a registered member of the Independent Party in Newtown. Town committee members are also “requested to volunteer to assist IPN in achieving its goals in some way within the member’s first two regular meetings after becoming members of the town committee.”

Those qualified members will also have voting rights.

Participants’ Responsibilities

IPN Town Committee participation may include working on one or more standing committees which may include: Party Rules and Organization Committee; Fundraising Committee; Membership and Outreach Committee; Nominating Committee; or any ad hoc or other panel assembled or established by the town committee.

The new IPN bylaws also reserve the right to establish task forces “for purposes of research, discovery and strategy.” Any town committee or supporting member may serve on an IPN task force.

The bylaws establish intent to schedule a minimum of six town committee meetings annually, and the IPN will conduct open regular meetings “at the direction of the town committee.” The group also reserves the right to call special meetings within 48 hours of notification via email.

Mr Walczak said this leaves plenty of room for the IPN to hold what he called “executive committee meetings,” which he said would be different from executive session, in that all party members might be allowed to stay and participate, while unaffiliated meeting attendees might be excluded.

“We tried to allow for town committee meetings where we’re dealing with interior matters. But it’s very challenging — how do you write it [into the by-laws] to make that distinction, maybe ‘executive meetings?’ That way we can have internal meetings when you want them and public meetings when you want them,” Mr Walczak said.

The new IPN bylaws also make provisions for town committee members to attend meetings and participate in voting if “not physically present” by using email, telephone, written absentee ballot, “or other authorized means,” with a 2/3 majority vote of town committee members present for such a meeting.

By the first Tuesday of August during odd numbered years, the IPN nominating committee is bound to submit any nominations of candidates to stand for elected office, after which town committee members “shall vote to accept or reject candidates so nominated...”

According to the bylaws, in the event of any tie votes, the nominating committee chairman will vote to break the tie — and in his or her absence, the IPN vice chair will cast the tie-breaking vote on nominations.

In the event the IPN fails to qualify one of its own members for any vacant seat, or faces having to replace a member, the nominating committee chair must select a three-person committee “to locate, interview and select a candidate to represent IPN for the vacant office.”

Local-Only Authority

Democratic Registrar LeReine Frampton clarified that while the state Independent Party Central Committee still has authority in statewide and federal political races, and in some Connecticut municipalities, the establishment of the new IPN bylaws dictates its governance on a strictly local level.

“That means locally registered Independent voters participation in state and federal voting stays the same,” Ms Frampton said. “But locally, any registered Independent has to fulfill IPN town committee criteria to participate with the party.”

In March, a discrepancy occurred at the state level when Michael J. Telesca, a Waterbury alderman and one of two co-agents of the state Independent Party told The Bee that Newtown’s IPN never received a two-thirds majority vote of the Independent Party State Central.

At the time, Mr Telesca said that it was probably his fault, because he never followed up with IPN members seeking the state party affiliation, and never presented the IPN’s party rules to the state party’s other co-agent, Dr Robert Fand of Bethel, to be put on the state party’s meeting agenda for ratification.

Dr Fand told The Bee that he understood IPN members approached Mr Telesca in 2007 seeking to transform an education advocacy group called WeCAN into a minor party, but reiterated at the time that the IPN was not part of the state central Independents.

Furthermore, Dr Fand said that based on what he viewed as significantly different philosophies, he would never align the state Independent Party with what he termed a “tax and spend, left-wing liberal school lobby.”

This seems to sit well with the local IPN contingent. Mr Walczak told The Bee that the IPN will claim no official tie to the Independent Party Central Committee.

“It’s really fascinating when you get into it,” Mr Walczak said. “If I register as an Independent, I’m technically able to caucus with the State Central, but the state central has no tie or control over what I do locally.”

Mr Walczak said it is similar to the scenario where a registered Republican or Democrat wants to participate as a member of the IPN.

“They would have to go through our town committee and meet the conditions of our by-laws locally,” he said.

Further reinforcing that notion, an attorney speaking on behalf of the Secretary of the State’s Elections Division concurred that 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 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.

Mr Walczak believes once ballots are printed, however, anyone qualifying as an IPN candidate in November will still see his or her name on a line designated for “Independent Party.”

The situation appears to leave any registered Independents who espouse the state Central Committee’s political philosophies in a curious position, because according to town registrars, those voters must still abide by IPN bylaws at the grassroots level here in Newtown. Ms Frampton said she has confirmed that the state does not differentiate between the IPN and the Independent Central Committee at the local level.