We took great issue with the Manhattan Democratic Party the other week for failing to follow its own rules meant to ensure that only the most highly qualified candidates get nominated for the top trial bench, state Supreme Court, by rejecting the report of its independent screening panel recommending the nine best contenders and opening up the ballot to all 19 who applied, including the 10 lesser lights who didn’t make the list.

Now, the party has blatantly and unambiguously broken state law and their Supreme Court candidates should be stripped from the November ballot.

We’ll get to the illegality, but after being exposed and embarrassed in this column for fooling around with the screening panel, the party’s Judiciary Committee that same night narrowly reversed course at a contentious public Zoom meeting and accepted the panel’s work on a 5-4 vote.

Three of those fighting against the reversal were County Leader Keith Wright, County Chair Nico Minerva and East Side District Leader Rebecca Weintraub. Minerva was challenged to recuse himself because his wife, lower court Judge Emily Morales-Minerva, was one of those 10 candidates not recommended, however she would be eligible if the panel’s report was discarded. Minerva would not stand aside and maintained that the panel’s process was flawed and should be voided, insisting that, “At the end of the day, the rules are the rules.”

The New York State Supreme Court Building is visible in Foley Square in New York City on Wednesday, December 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey)

And the laws are the laws. Two days later, at the party’s judicial nominating convention, Minerva broke the law. His illegal actions should render the convention meaningless and the three Democratic candidates removed from the ballot.

Minerva was designated under law by state Party Chair Jay Jacobs as the convener. And Minerva did just that at 7:24 p.m. on Aug. 10, calling the roll and unanimously electing Weintraub as temporary chair. Weintraub then oversaw the unanimous elections of four officers, including Minerva as the permanent chair. Minerva ran the convention, which adopted rules and nominated Phaedra Perry, Lyle Frank, and (after a floor fight) Leslie Stroth. Minerva adjourned at 8:55, signing the certificate of nomination and the minutes.

Minerva was not allowed to do any of that. Says Election Law 6–126: “The person who calls the convention to order shall exercise no other function than that of calling the official roll of the delegates upon the vote for temporary chairman and declaring the result thereof.”

The Manhattan Dems should know better to follow the exact letter of the law. Their 1982 convention was thrown out by the courts because the certificates of nomination were filed one day late. In 2018, the Staten Island Dems had their convention thrown out because they filed not the convention minutes, but a stenographer’s transcript. Also in 2018, the Syracuse Conservative Party had their convention thrown out because, like Minerva, their convener also ran the show. An Albany appellate panel recognized the legal violation, but still inexplicably reinstated the convention.

Someone should take this to court. It’s too late for a redo, as the time for conventions has passed and it’s too late to run independent candidates. The three other parties, Republican, Conservative and Working Families, didn’t have Manhattan conventions, so by right the November ballot should be blank and let three people win on write-in campaigns.