-against-
DIANE HASLETT RUDIANO, et al.,
Defendants.
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AARON D. MASLOW, an attorney admitted to practice law in New York State courts and before this Court, hereby affirms under penalties of perjury:
1. Although I do not represent Defendant Kings County Republican Party, I submit this affirmation in support of a dismissal of the within action commenced by Plaintiff and for the purpose of apprising the Court of the true facts with respect to the allegations made by Plaintiff.
2. Until early June, I served as 2nd Vice-Chair of the Kings County Republican County Committee. In early June, I resigned that position for reasons unrelated to the matters which are the subject of this lawsuit.
3. A meeting of the Executive Committee of the Kings County Republican County Committee ("Kings County Republican Executive Committee") was called for May 5, 2004, for the purpose of, among other things, granting Wilson-Pakula authorizations to non-Republicans seeking the Republican nomination in Kings County. Pursuant to Election Law section 6-120, an authorization is required to validate any designating petition when the candidate designated is not a party member.
4. The presiding officer of the May 5, 2004 meting was Robert Howe, chairman of the Kings County Republican Executive Committee. However, that part of the meeting which related to petition preparation and Wilson-Pakula authorizations was conducted by me, having been appointed for that purpose by Mr. Howe.
5. Mr. Sloan, among numerous candidates, perhaps 20, addressed the May 5, 2004 meeting. Prior thereto, he had contacted various members of the Executive Committee, seeking their support. Going into the meeting, several Executive Committee members expressed reservations at Mr. Sloan's background; his resume did not describe someone who would be a presentable Republican Congressional candidate.
6. The May 5, 2004 meeting involved various matters, but not only Wilson-Pakula authorizations. It also involved whom to place on designating petitions to be distributed and circulated by Executive Committee members. It is theoretically possible for someone to be granted a Wilson-Pakula authorization and not be designated on a petition circulated by Executive Committee members, in which case the candidate would have to obtain his/her own signatures. Also, many candidates appearing on designating petitions do not need Wilson-Pakula authorizations since they are party members.
7. After all candidates spoke, separate votes were taken on whom to place on designating petitions and whom to grant Wilson-Pakula authorizations. With regard to the 10th Congressional District, it became apparent that there was opposition to Mr. Sloan's candidacy. As stated before, there had been discomfort with Mr. Sloan even before the meeting. Some people at the meeting were uncomfortable with Mr. Sloan's having brought his baby up to the podium in a stroller despite the fact that someone else was with him who could have remained with the baby. They felt he utilized the baby for "show-and-tell" purposes.
8. My recollection is also that Marianna Blume, a State Committee member, also wanted to be the Congressional candidate in the 10th Congressional District.
9. After some discussion, the Executive Committee decided that in terms of whose name would be printed on the designating petitions to be distributed and circulated by Executive Committee members, a telephone poll would be conducted no later than by May 12, 2004, of those Executive Committee members who were State Committee members from Assembly Districts in the 10th Congressional District. In other words, they wanted to leave the decision in the hands of those who were from the district. The entire Executive Committee, in either a voice vote or a show of hands, and it was a divided vote, granted a Wilson-Pakula to Mr. Sloan so that if he was the victor in the telephone poll another meeting would not have to be held in order to grant a Wilson-Pakula.
10. On the following Wednesday, May 12, 2004, I conducted a telephone poll of State Committee members representing Assembly Districts in the 10th Congressional District. It was conducted on the basis of a weighted vote, each State Committee member casting a vote equal to one-half of the Republican enrollment in that part of the Assembly District represented by him or her which was within the 10th Congressional District. My records indicate that 9215 votes were cast for Adrienne Britton (daughter of a State Committee member), 972.5 for Plaintiff Sam Sloan, and 444 for Marianna Blume.
11. It was on May 12, 2004, that the true personality of Plaintiff Sam Sloan became known. I will discuss this shortly.
12. Some time afterwards, Adrienne Britton called me. She said she did not want to run for Congress. I then asked Diane Rudiano, the secretary of the Kings County Republican County Committee, to conduct another telephone poll. She did so and Isabelle Jefferson was chosen as the candidate to appear on the designating petitions.
13. I will now return to May 12, 2004. On that date, Plaintiff informed Diane Rudiano (per a telephone conversation she had with me) that he was famous and she should check his Internet Web site. Having heard this, I did so myself. It was toward the end of the day and nearly all votes had been cast in the telephone poll I conducted.
14. It turned out that Plaintiff Sam Sloan had fraudulently misled the members of the Executive Committee in portraying himself as someone sympathetic to Republican values. However, I would probably characterize Plaintiff's values as not only being antithetical to those of the Republican Party but probably antithetical to those of any decent person.
15. Without going into too much detail here, after I and others in succeeding days looked at Plaintiff's Web site, it became apparent that he was very strange and delusional. His Web site contained a graphic description of sex orgies he conducted in the 1960's in California and there was at least one pornographic photo there of someone who participated in the orgies. In others sections of Plaintiff's Web site, he conducted a bulletin board discussion of why women spread their legs wide during sexual intercourse, he discussed sex brothels in the Far East (employing minors) he had been to, and he accused President Bush of conspiring with Jerry Falwell to kidnap his daughter. He also used vituperative language against the conduct of the war in Iraq by Pres. George W. Bush. In different parts of his Web site he alluded to having different numbers of children; this was compounded by a reference to an unknown number of children conceived with various girlfriends. He speculated on the potency of his sperm. This was all very disgusting.
16. With this being on people's minds it should not be surprising that when it came time to re-vote after Adrienne Bramwell declined the designation, nobody wanted Plaintiff Sam Sloan to be the Republican candidate in the 10th Congressional District. Various members contacted me and asked whether we should meet to rescind the Wilson-Pakula. I told them that it was my opinion that such would not be necessary since (1) Plaintiff would probably never obtain the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot, and (2) my re-reading of the Rules of the Kings County Republican Party County Committee persuaded me that the Wilson-Pakula was never validly granted to Plaintiff.
17. I too had been concerned in the days following May 12, 2004, that a Wilson-Pakula had been granted to Plaintiff Sam Sloan, after seeing his Internet Web site. I looked at the Rules of the County Committee and re-read the provision concerning Wilson-Pakula authorizations. Upon doing so, I came across that provision which states:
A nomination for Representative in Congress shall be made by a majority vote of the members voting at a meeting of County Committee members representing Election Districts contained within the Congressional District in which the election will be held. [Article VI, Section 1]
18. Article VI, Section 2, provides:
An authorization of the designation or nomination of a person not enrolled in the Republican Party as a candidate of the Republican Party to be voted for in a political unit wholly contained within Kings County may be made in accordance with the provisions of Section 1 of this article in the same manner as described therein.
19. The provision concerning Congressional nominations had been in the rules since as early as 2001. I myself had made certain that it was inserted in order to bring the rules into conformity with Montano v. Lefkowitz, 575 F.2d 378 (2d Cir. 1978), which held that nominations for Representative in Congress had to be made exclusively by party officials representing districts within the respective Congressional District. (This does not apply to other public officers as the analysis in that case relied upon the Constitutional provision governing the election of the House of Representatives, not the Equal Protection Clause.)
20. In re-reading the rules, it became apparent that the Executive Committee lacked the authority to grant a Wilson-Pakula authorization -- it could only be granted at a meeting of County Committee members representing Election Districts within the Congressional District. Thus, I told fellow Executive Committee members at the time that they should not be concerned since the Wilson-Pakula granted to Plaintiff Sam Sloan was invalid.
21. I am attaching a complete copy of the Rules of the Kings County Republican County Committee.
22. In the last month, Plaintiff has been bombarding Executive Committee members with e-mails demanding to be the Republican candidate. He is harassing them constantly. It is apparent that nobody on the Executive Committee wants him to be the candidate because of his sexually-oriented Web site. Moreover, he was never validly granted a Wilson-Pakula authorization. I respectfully submit that this Court should dismiss this action and order Plaintiff to stop harassing the members of the Kings County Republican Executive Committee.
23. Additionally, I respectfully submit that Plaintiff lacks standing to pursue the within action inasmuch as he lacks the minimum requisite number of signatures on a designating petition, according to his own admission. See Clark v. Rose, 531 F.2d 56 (2d Cir. 1976). A candidate who obtains a Wilson-Pakula authorization must still, according to New York's Election Law, file a designating petition containing the minimum number of valid party signatures.
24. I am no longer a member of the Kings County Republican Executive Committee but I do empathize with its members in that they were hoodwinked into letting Plaintiff appear before them. He submitted a resume but never disclosed his strange obsession with sexually-oriented themes. He should leave the Republican leadership alone and pursue his ambitions in another forum.
Dated: June 6, 2004 _____________________________
AARON D. MASLOW (AM-9603)
Here are the petitions I have filed in the United States Supreme Court, in HTML Format: