State Elections Official: IPN Not Part Of State Independent Party

By John Voket

Is the Independent Party of Newtown a standalone political group of local civic-minded individuals with an exclusively local agenda, or is it one of a number of statewide town committees collectively affiliated with the Independent Party State Central, which most recently endorsed Connecticut native Ralph Nader for President and Newtown Republican Will Rodgers for the 106th District legislative seat?

Or is it both...or neither? That depends on whom you ask.

According to an attorney speaking on behalf of the Secretary of the State’s Elections Division, 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 told The Bee this week that 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. He further clarified that even the Independent Party State Central has not achieved the goal of getting its party’s candidates on the ballots in every town in Connecticut.

Michael J. Telesca, a Waterbury alderman and one of two co-agents of the state Independent Party, told The Bee March 18 that he verbally informed IPN members in 2007 that fulfilling the bylaws of the state party was “a formality.” Nonetheless, Mr Telesca said the Independent Party of Newtown was never formally accepted as a local town committee under the state party’s bylaws.

Mr Telesca told The Bee in a phone interview that he never sent IPN’s proposed rules or bylaws for approval, and those bylaws never received a two-thirds majority vote of the Independent Party State Central, which is required by the state party’s rules.

He then clarified in a Letter to the Editor published in this edition of The Bee, and in a follow-up call, that he was not sure if a meeting of the Independent Party State Central has been held since he first was contacted by IPN in 2007 for assistance in converting from the educational advocacy group WeCAN (We Care About Newtown) to an aspiring minor political party seeking to get its members elected to local office.

Mr Telesca said he was waiting for such a meeting to present the IPN for consideration, as well as several other local town committees expressing interest in coming under the statewide party banner.

Party Leader Waffles

In his initial interview, Mr Telesca said the local group also failed to include boilerplate language in its party rules that detail the state party’s nomination procedures as it was instructed to do. Later, however, he asserted in a his letter to The Bee: “Contrary to what was reported, the Newtown Town Committee Bylaws of the Independent Party did in fact include acceptable nomination procedures for Town Committee members and for Independent candidates for local office, and they followed the guidelines that I gave them.”

Further confusing the situation, Mr Telesca subsequently told The Bee that the nominating procedures he shared with IPN reflected language in the bylaws of the Waterbury Independent Town Committee, and not the state central guidelines.

Mr Telesca also said the Newtown faction was instructed it could no longer call itself the Independent Party of Newtown.

“They are not the Independent Party of Newtown,” Mr Telesca said. “They are on the ballot as the separate town committee of the Independent Party State Central.”

Ultimately, Mr Telesca told The Bee that the entire brouhaha was probably his fault, because he never followed up with the IPN members seeking 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.

This is where apparent political philosophies within the Independent Party State Central begin to diverge.

Dr Fand told The Bee that he understood IPN members approached Mr Telesca in 2007 seeking to transform the education advocacy group WeCAN into a minor party, but said as far as he is concerned the IPN is not part of the state central Independents. Dr Fand said that based on what he viewed as significantly different philosophies, he would never align the state Independent Party with a “tax and spend, left-wing liberal school lobby.”

“All they want to do is tax people to the hilt, in my opinion,” Dr Fand said of the IPN. “We believe in financial responsibility, not going into debt.”

State Affiliation Downplayed

The Independent Party of Newtown, identifying itself as IPN throughout its recently filed bylaws, makes no direct reference to the state entity except in the header of its package of by bylaws, which reads: “Independent Party Newtown Town Committee.”

The Independent Party of Newtown (IPN) announced February 11 that Police Commissioner Bruce Walczak was elected its new chairman, with Ann Ziluck being named the party’s secretary, and Gianine Crowell its treasurer.

There are currently four elected officials who qualified to represent the IPN with official minor party status in town government: Gary Davis and Po Murray, who were elected to the Legislative Council; David Nanavaty, who was an IPN candidate for the Board of Education; and Mr Walczak, who was elected to the Police Commission.

Newtown Registrars of Voters Le Reine Frampton and Karin Aurelia said the Connecticut Secretary of the State’s office initially informed them IPN was the local town committee of the Independent Party State Central. But now they understand the local committee is a standalone entity that was putting members up for petition positions on the ballot under a local political initiative.

While there was a substantial list of state Independent Party voters registered in Newtown before the 2007 election, the registrars were recently directed to include all IPN members under the same designation on the ballot as candidates that might come forward for local office who are registered members of the state Independent Party.

Following publication of a report on the issue on The Newtown Bee’s website last week, the IPN’s chairman Mr Walczak said in an email that he was appreciative for the newspaper bringing the apparent discrepancies to light.

“Thanks for...researching out the information on The Independent Party of Ct State Central Committee having not approved the bylaws. We might not have found that out if it was not for your great research,” Mr Walczak wrote, adding that “Mike [Telesca] acknowledges that he should have asked to have a meeting before this became an issue.”

Mr Walczak said it appears that there is one last step to this very complicated process.

“It is a step that is being managed by Mike Telesca of the Independent Party of Connecticut,” Mr Walczak wrote. “We are looking forward to completing this process and moving forward.”

Ms Aurelia, Newtown Republican registrar, said there is still some confusion because both the IPN and state Independent Party have separate bylaws filed locally, and with the state. But both the Secretary of the State’s office and Mr Telesca do agree that each entity can operate within the parameters of the law under its own individual bylaws.

“As far as I’m concerned, you can call them the purple and blue party because they are separate political entities in the eyes of the state,” Mr Liu said.