Fusion Fracture in Erie County

Ever since the days of Joe Illuzzi’s website’s unabashed paid shilling for the so-called Independence Party and its then-chairman, a Springville barber, I have assailed the inherent corruption of electoral fusion.

This quirk – unique to New York and only a few other states – allows parties a mechanism by which to endorse another party’s candidate for office. The lore goes that Democrats are loath to vote for Republicans, and vice-versa, so if a major party candidate appears on a “Conservative Party” or “Independence Party” line, that is a convenient way to allow for easier ballot splitting. The Independence Party is gratifyingly extinct, but the Conservative Party still exists, and at least locally it is not known so much for its tenets, platform, or beliefs, as it is for influence.

You see, if you run something called the “Conservative Party“, which boasts only 15,000 or so registered voters in Erie County, you have very little clout, all by yourself. But if you cross-endorse, say, a Republican candidate, a general election win in a heavily blue Erie County thanks in part to lending your line means someone owes you something like a patronage job for a committee member.

It has always been thus, and the Conservative Party in Erie County holds far, far more indirect electoral influence than its membership would suggest or naturally allow. Thankfully, Democrats running for office have largely eschewed seeking the Conservative Party line.

All of this recently spilled out into the open.

When former Erie County Legislator Joe Lorigo won a Supreme Court election, the vacated seat is supposed to go to a member of the same party – the Conservative Party.

Ralph Lorigo – the Conservative Party’s Erie County chairman for thirty years, and Joe’s father – wanted the seat to go to Joe’s wife, Lindsay Bratek-Lorigo. (Bratek-Lorigo may be perfectly qualified, but her selection would raise questions about nepotism and electability that the Republicans would likely want to avoid.)

Although the seat must by law be filled by a Conservative Party member, the act of filling it remained within the control of the Legislature’s Republican minority. So, they started a process. Of all people, fail-Zelig Stefan Mychajliw – who has not won an election since 2017 – was angling for the seat. He has spent the last seven or so years sucking at his job, trying desperately to make headlines, cozying up to Chris Collins and Steve Bannon to get the NY-27 nomination, running for Town Supervisor in Hamburg as if it was some sort of referendum on being “woke”, and he has failed and lost every step of the way.

Naturally, not being complete fools, the Republicans saved themselves from selecting Mychajliw, who now contents himself podcasting with insurance salesmen.

But the fact that the Republicans did not automatically rubber-stamp Bratek-Lorigo made the Lorigo paterfamilias angry in a way that resulted in an unprecedented lecture of the Republicans on the County Legislature from – of all places – the public gallery. In urging the Republican minority to select Bratek-Lorigo, he urged them to consider the value of “inclusivity” and not just allowing these seats to be recycled to “old, white men”.

In literally any other situation, such a plea would be derided as “woke.” Where’s Mychajliw’s execrable Twitter when you need it?

Lorigo also reminded the three remaining Republicans that they all sit “with [his] endorsement,” and admonished them to “do the right thing” in a blatant, shocking, and explicit political threat.

Unpersuaded, the Republican minority eventually picked Elma Councilmember Jim Malczewski, who switched to the Conservative Party just in time and just long enough to satisfy the legal prerequisite for the job.

The problem here isn’t the replacement process itself. While certainly the fairest outcome in such a situation would be a special election, life isn’t fair and the statute does not allow for that. Plus, we don’t do parliamentary-style “snap” elections, so such a process would be long and costly. Underscored here is the stupidity of fusion. It is a system that enables Lorigo to issue threats regarding Republican endorsements in an open forum, without a hint of shame. The loosey-goosey election rules enabled the Republicans to bypass the law and offer up a candidate who they perceive to be more electable than the Conservative’s choice.

All of this – from the explicit nepotism to the explicit threats – is indicative of just how systemically corrupt the system is. Face it – without electoral fusion, the Republicans simply would be picking a Republican replacement and Lorigo would not be in a position to make threats or issue ironic paeans to “inclusivity.”

The quickest fixes to make elections better and fairer is to abolish electoral fusion and to simplify ballot access.