A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-June, 1998 | Richard Grayson

A Writer’s Diary Entries From Mid-June, 1998 | Richard Grayson

Arizona Republic Column on Arizona No Labels Party Lawsuit Mentions Richard Grayson

Today, Monday, October 23, 2023, the Arizona Republic published an online column by Abe Kwok, "No Labels wants a judge to block some candidates from running. The law may not be on its side," that mentions Richard Grayson as one of the No Labels Party candidates targeted:

No Labels officials rest their argument on a state statute that says: “At a primary election, each political party entitled and intending to make nominations for the ensuing general or special election, if it desires to have the names of its candidates printed on the official ballot at that general or special election, shall nominate its candidates … .”

They interpret the qualifying language “intending to make nominations” and “if it desires to have the names of its candidates printed” to mean the law gives political parties the ultimate say on candidates and whether to hold a primary.

But that statute narrowly relates to the nomination of candidates for printing on an official ballot.

At least one of the two people who filed paperwork, Richard Grayson, is seeking to run as a write-in candidate — that is, forgoing the process of gathering nomination signatures needed to secure his name on the ballot.

Grayson is taking advantage of, as he has done before, Arizona’s rules for parties that have “not qualified for continued representation,” including new political parties. Those rules allow a candidate to win the party nomination with a simple plurality of the vote.

Grayson won one primary race with a mere two votes and another one with 11.

More relevant is an Arizona law related to new political parties: “A new political party may become eligible for recognition and shall be represented by an official party ballot at the next ensuing regular primary election.”

. . .

No Labels’ suit isn’t the first time that Grayson, a lifelong Democrat who admits to simply wanting to sabotage No Labels, has been targeted for removal from running.

The Green Party sued him and other Green write-in primary winners in 2010, as well as the then-Secretary of State Ken Bennett and the 15 county recorders, to keep the Green primary winners off general election ballots.

The party lost.

Grayson welcomes another round of legal clarity.

Either way, he’ll be running as a No Labels party member regardless the outcome: Alaska last month certified him as a candidate for Congress in its open primary election.

A print version of the story appeared on page 4B of the October 25, 2023 Arizona Republic.

Saturday Afternoon in Downtown Phoenix: Occupy Phoenix presents Occupy Education Rally for Public Education at Cesar Chavez Plaza

Late this morning we took the light rail from Mesa to Central and Washington in downtown Phoenix to attend Occupy Phoenix's rally for public education in Arizona, Occupy Education, at Cesar Chavez Plaza.

It was the kickoff for Occupy Phoenix's January “Month of Education,” and as the press release stated,

Together with teachers, parents, and students, we will be
discussing vouchers, merit pay, high-stakes testing, the rising cost of college tuition, and many more important topics.

Are you a parent who has seen cutbacks damage your children’s public school?

Are you a teacher struggling with low pay, large classes, and little support?

Are you a college student buried in debt? Join us on January 7th at noon and speak out!

Let’s send a message to our legislators that our children’s education is not for sale!

A good education is a right, NOT a privilege for just the wealthy few!

Bring your signs and friends of all ages!

Obviously, Cesar Chavez Plaza was not anything close to what we saw at Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park in the fall, but on the other hand, we met people who've been here since the very beginning of Occupy Phoenix and we were impressed with how well everything seemed planned, without the loss of any spontaneity.

We spoke to a number of people who were highly informed, dedicated, energized and passionate about the concerns of the Occupy movement.

The human microphone wasn't really necessary as a bullhorn gave the speakers resonance over the whole plaza.

On the steps of Phoenix's Old City Hall, people from Occupy Phoenix discussed the issues regarding public education, from inadequate state funding and the corporatization of education to the problems of massive student loan debt and attacks on programs like ethnic studies.

The facilitators of the breakout groups announced what they'd be discussing and we met in these groups at various spots in Cesar Chavez Plaza.

We attended a terrific session, "Higher Education Secrets for the 99%," with college students and recent graduates, university and community college faculty and administrators, all providing interesting testimony and ideas about the crisis in higher education.

Chelsea Starr, Ph.D., the facilitator, gave us terrific handouts with charts showing the exponential rise in tuition over recent decades (we attended Brooklyn College for free from 1969 to 1973!), the net college costs as a percentage of median family income for all income quintiles, the sources of undergraduate aid, and more.

Another breakout group was titled "What Happens When Public School Becomes a Business?," in which Megan and Connie Leach, Ed.D., discussed the ways in which taxpayer money is taken from public education to support corporate profit, vouchers and tax credits, class size/student-to-teacher ratio, and other topics.

"What's Money Got to Do With It? How Income Affects Educational Opportunities" had Ana Ramos-Pell, Ed.D., leading a session on the status of the nation's public school system and dealing with questions like "Are schools really failing?" and "Does income affect our public schools and prevent students from attaining the American dream?"

Joya Scott led a breakout session on "Why the Arts Matter in Public Education," discussing the value of arts education in a high-stakes-testing-in-basic-skills system, why recent severe cuts to arts education are harming American children, and what parents and others can do about it.

There was also an open topic discussion breakout group led by Mike Royer.

Unfortunately, we had to get back to Apache Junction before the reconvening of the whole group when session participants read their calls to action and people made closing remarks.

Although we wish we could have stayed longer at Cesar Chavez Plaza, we were really glad we finally got to see Occupy Phoenix in action and look forward to returning for other events.

During the January "Month of Education," special guests will conduct teach-ins about nonviolence, sustainability, and the housing and foreclosure crisis here in the Phoenix metro area, and there will be regular teach-ins focusing on the History of politics and current events.

We're grateful to Occupy Phoenix for giving a voice to the 99% on numerous issues, including those surrounding public education.
You can find a treasure trove of information and livestream at the Occupy Phoenix website.

Richard Grayson's "WEST SIDE SUMMERS" Now Available as Paperback or eBook on Amazon Kindle

This week Superstition Mountain Press published Richard Grayson's West Side Summers. It is available in a 314-page trade paperback edition for $15.99, as well as an Amazon Kindle edition published by http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifArt Pants Company for 99 cents.

The promo stuff says in part,

Richard Grayson started writing a daily diary in the summer of 1969, when he turned 18, and has compiled daily entries since then. In the six volumes of THE BROOKLYN DIARIES (SUMMER IN BROOKLYN, AUTUMN IN BROOKLYN, WINTER IN BROOKLYN, SPRING IN BROOKLYN, MORE SUMMER IN BROOKLYN, and A YEAR IN ROCKAWAY), Grayson published selected entries from 1969 to 1980.

Now, in WEST SIDE SUMMERS, the second volume of THE EIGHTIES DIARIES (following SOUTH FLORIDA WINTERS), Grayson describes his summer days living on the Upper West Side from 1984 to 1987. Already a published author, Grayson records his days and nights prowling the streets of Manhattan and Brooklyn, alone or with fellow writers and other friends, with side trips to his grandmother's beachfront co-op in Rockaway and a stay at the artists' colony that was the estate of poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Celebrities like Allen Ginsberg, Norman Mailer, Isaac Bashevis Singer and a not-so-famous Harvey Pekar often cross Grayson's path, and he recreates the scene on the Yuppified Upper West Side and the grittier world of the Lower East Side.

Shakespeare in the Park, Sichuan restaurants, a decidedly seedy Times Square, hip coffee shops, Zabar's and H&H Bagels, literary readings, elderly Jews on the boardwalk, the panic and terror of the AIDS epidemic, homeless beggars, nights with ex-lovers, graduate classes in computers, gay pride parades, the Statue of Liberty centennial, cash advances at ATMs, Wall Street insider trading indictments, giving and getting interviews, soaring ambitions and crushing self-doubts: this is Grayson's world in the exciting long, hot summers of a Manhattan in the middle of the flashy 1980s.

It will also be available on Scribd and Lulu for free online reading.

How Conservative Republicans Played the Inept, Bumbling Arizona Green Party and Took It Over

The Arizona Green Party today issued this press release:
Arizona Green Party (AZGP) announces endorsed candidates for 2010 elections

The following Green Party candidates have been endorsed by AZGP. We encourage registered voters in Arizona to vote for, support, volunteer, and donate to their campaigns:

1.Jerry Joslyn: U.S. Senate; http://joslynforsenate.com
2.William Crum: U.S. Congress (CD 2); write-in candidate for General Election; http://www.newmenu.org/williamcrum
3.Leonard Clark: U.S. Congress (CD 3); write-in candidate; http://www.newmenu.org/leonardclark
4.Rebecca DeWitt: U.S. Congress (CD 4); http://www.dewitt4congress.com
5.Deborah O'Dowd: State Representative (LD 6); write-in candidate; http://www.newmenu.org/deborahodowd
6.Justin Dahl: State Representative (LD 12); http://www.newmenu.org/justindahl
7.Luisa Valdez: State Representative (LD 15); http://www.luisavaldez.com
8.Angel Torres: State Representative (LD 16); http://www.newmenu.org/angel_torres
9.Gregor Knauer: State Representative (LD 17); http://www.gregorknauer.com
10.Linda Macias: State Representative (LD 21); http://www.newmenu.org/lindamacias
11.Kent Solberg: State Representative (LD 27); http://www.kent4house.org

The following Green Party candidate has been vetted, but remains non-endorsed by AZGP. If he is successful in the Primary Election, we may reconsider endorsing him for the General Election.


1.Richard Grayson: U.S. Congress (CD 6); write-in candidate; http://grayson-green.blogspot.com

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #

There are several Green Party candidates that are actively opposed. We strongly advise all registered Arizona voters to not waste their votes on these individuals during the August 24th Primary Election or the November 2nd General Election (assuming they advance). The offices include: Governor, Secretary of State (write-in), Treasurer (write-in), Corporation Commission (2 write-in candidates), U.S. Congress (CD 5, write-in), State Senate (LD 10, 2 write-in candidates), State Representative (LD 17, write-in), State Senate (LD 17, write-in), State Representative (LD 20, write-in), State Representative (LD 22, write-in), and State Senate (LD 23, write-in).

If you don't understand why a political party would actively oppose so many of its own candidates, including its candidate for Governor, upon whose vote totals the party is dependent for maintaining continued ballot presence in Arizona, perhaps this memo to Green Party candidates from a week ago will explain what happened:

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 2010

Green Party candidates:

At yesterday's skype meeting I gave a report about the current status of the carpetbagger candidate situation. I just sent you the first of two parts of that report, and this is the second. The part below contains information from the perspective of the Arizona Green Party, and some of it is confidential, so please do not share it except talking among AzGP SC members or endorsed candidates.

But we particularly need input from candidates about where to go next, so please respond. Time is short before we have to either act, or not act, so think it through, but give your input in the next day or two.

claudia

As you know, a number of candidates who have signed-up to be write-ins in our August 24 AzGP primary are strangers to us. But there are three things about them that we DO know:

1. None of them has anything Google can uncover about them [no paper trail],
2. They were all Rs the day before, and
3. Derek Lee, who gathered signatures, through his professional company, for Larry Gist [the pirate who is on the ballot as our candidate for governor], is now the campaign manager for Gist, AND for at least some, and possibly all, of the others. It is unclear whether Derek organized all this at his own behest, in the hopes of raking in Clean Elections monies for advising their various campaigns, or by somebody who is paying him to do this mischief, or -- well, whatever else would explain it.

Regarding Gist, we had hoped to field a write-in against him, and defeat him in the primary, replacing him with someone who would use that megaphone to really run a Green campaign, and provide some coat tail for our other candidates, or at least not embarrass the party in the way that we are fearful Mr Gist will. It didn't happen. We approached a number of possibles, and they all had good personal reasons why it could not be.

But the problem with Mr Gist has been eclipsed by the staggering number of similar unknowns who are now pirating our ballot line, by filing on July 15, at the last minute, so that we would have no chance to oppose them. If Arizona law were even-handed [read that as "constitutional"], we could still remove them, by the simple expedient of contacting Geen Party registrants, and telling them NOT to write these guys in. The Democrats had the same idea, and even contacted us offering to pay for such a mailing, since these pirates will be spoiling races which their candidates might otherwise win.

However, ARS § 16-645 D would make such a letter, by itself, merely symbolic, because this statute allows, in our Party and only in our Party, for a person to become a Green the day before, submit write-in documents on the last possible day and minute, and then, unopposed, elect himself to the November 2 ballot. All by the expedient of having a single vote-- his own-- cast in the form of a write-in, on the August 24th ballot.

We have been silent about this statute, which is tucked away in a section of the statute book about 200 pages from the sections dealing with write-ins, candidates, signatures, etc. It is in the section that has bureaucratic formulas for the process that county election officials follow in canvassing the vote, and reporting the results to the SoS, who then puts them on the November ballot.

Some of you have asked why we didn't tell you all about this provision, to save you having to get signatures. The answer is three-fold. One is that we did not want the information publicized, because we did not want the very problem we now confront-- pirates.

Second is that it would have made it impossible for the candidates who are going to be Clean Elections qualified to do so in time. Third is that we don't think it is constitutional, and if we had used it, all acting at the last minute, all of our candidates could have been challenged in court, and bumped off the ballot, making all our ballot access signature gathering worthless.

So we've been looking for an attorney with federal court election experience, to see if we can make the challenge ourselves, and bump the pirates. NOTE: If we talk about this, the pirates will know that they have to get more votes than just their own, and will set about to do so-- a quick mailing to all the registered Greens in the state. Derek Lee is easily set up to pull that off. So DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT, except among ourselves.

Ten talks have been:
1. To the law firm that represented us Arizona Green Party v Bennett. They agreed about the law, but they only have 4 lawyers, and only one is an election lawyer, and they are already committed to a case elsewhere, that is going to take all his time for the next two months.
2. To a contact in the Arizona Libertarian Party. They pursued a successful lawsuit a few years back, to overturn the law about open primaries, as it regarded to them. They won. The bad news is that they had to pay the lawyers up front.
3. To contacts within the Arizona Democratic Party, including their lawyer, pointing out that they cannot achieve their stated desire -- to protect their candidates from a spoiler effect by persons who are not even serious candidates, unless we join them in a lawsuit, funded by them, to overturn this statute. Waiting for a response.

We are not adverse to spoiling races in order to run our candidates, as that is what makes democracy work, unless a run-off or instant/same ballot run-off is used to tally votes. But the Arizona Green party does not spoil races for the sport of it. So we offered, instead, to be plaintiffs in a federal suit to toss this law out.

So here are the choices:
1. If we get a lawyer, we go forward. We may or may not win [I'd call our odds 60-40]. The downside is that we might lose our own, endorsed write-ins, if they don't get enough Greens to write them in under the rule that applies to all other political parties. The upside is that we won't have to deal with these carpetbaggers again, and any pirates trying to board the Green ship in the future will know that we can stop them.

2. If we don't get a lawyer, we call a press conference as soon as these turkeys become official, and we denounce them, denounce those who sent them our way, denounce those who wrote the law, denounce derk lee, denounce the Ds for not caring enough about their own candidates to fight this. We'll feel better, and it will at least not be the press ferreting it out with their own spin on it. But the downside is that we will be in the position, in November, of asking the average voter to remember which Green Party candidates are the endorsed candidates, and which the pirates. We end up hurting our own, endorsed candidates. It's kind of like when a weed grows to closely to the crop that you can't pull the one without getting the other. So you wait til the harvest, when you can better deal with it.

3. We do as little as possible now on the negative side, and just work doubly hard for our endorsed candidates. And we challenge the law later, when we have the time.

Candidates, what are your comments?

claudia ellquist
AzGP

=======
ARS § 16-645 D "Except as provided in subsection C of this section
[about precinct committeemen --ce], a certificate of nomination shall not
be issued to a write in candidate of a party which has not qualified for
continued representation on the official ballot pursuant to ARS 16-804
[this would be us --ce] unless he receives a plurality of the votes of
the party for the office for which he is a candidate."

Phoenix Gazette reports on Richard Grayson's Giraffe Hunters of America organization

The Phoenix Gazette today (Thursday, September 14, 1995) reports on Richard Grayson's Giraffe Hunters of America organization.