Bill Samuels, founder of the reform group New Roosevelt, joined State Senator Liz Krueger, Susan Lerner, Executive Director of Common Cause, and Elizabeth Caputo, Chairperson of DL21C to blast the continued over-use of special elections, exposing the fact that the boss-driven selection process has had a demonstrably negative impact on the percentage of women representative in Albany.

“The six Assembly Special Elections did not have competitive party primaries that continued the worst traditions of Albany dysfunction. Worse, the process had no accountability to the voters because the candidates were picked by the party leaders not the voters. It is a badly flawed process and a constitutional remedy should be considered,” said New Roosevelt Founder Bill Samuels

Bill Samuels, founder of the Albany reform organization, New Roosevelt, endorsed progressive candidate Jesus Gonzalez, who is running in the hotly contested special election for the 54th Assembly District in Brooklyn, NY. Gonzalez, a Democrat, is running as the Working Families Party candidate and is the only true reform candidate in the primary. Samuels slammed the special election process as badly flawed and patently undemocratic, and one more reason is it difficult for candidates who are not favored by …

By immediately appointing his own non-partisan Advisory Redistricting Committee, Governor Cuomo would allow time to engage communities statewide in a robust public debate on what an appropriate redistricting plan should look like and pressure LATFOR to produce a reasonable plan.

New Roosevelt founder Bill Samuels with a coalition of progressive groups and young activists rallied Saturday afternoon at Riverfront Green Park Pavilion in the City of Peekskill in Putnam Republican State Senator Greg Ball’s district demanding that he keep his word to pass Independent Redistricting in the state legislature.

Senator Jack Martins pledged to pass redistricting reform yet refuses to make good on his word; now his fellow Republicans in the Nassau County Legislature are following his lead.

Warns State Senators who have made Ed Koch’s “Enemies of Reform” that they will be potential targets of New Roosevelt Initiative protests if they do not comply with the pledge and pass redistricting reform during current session for the 2012 election cycle and not the 2022 cycle.

A coalition of local and statewide reform activists protest at Nassau Republican State Senator Jack Martin’s district office to pressure the newly elected Senator to live up to signing Ed Koch’s NY Uprising pledge and pass independent redistricting; Koch applauds rally

New York, NY – Democratic activist and New Roosevelt Initiative founder Bill Samuels and a coalition of progressive groups and young activists rallied Saturday afternoon at the district office of newly elected Nassau Republican State Senator Jack Martins …

The failure of Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos and his Senate Republicans to consider and publicly support a petition by Rules Committee members to have a public hearing on Governor Cuomo’s Redistricting Reform bill is a censorious action that proves they have no real interest allowing a public debate on the issue.

Advocates Cuomo use political capital to persuade a few Senate Republicans to vote for the bill while simultaneously adding the plan to his budget proposal before Thursday deadline to increase pressure on the GOP caucus; Urges Cuomo to line-item veto additional funding for LATFOR to force a resolution; Samuels calls on GOP Majority Leader Dean Skelos to immediately voice any legitimate objections to the bill, so they can be debated by the Rules Committee