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Frustrated by yet another setback in the Pennsylvania Courts, Green Party US Senate candidate, Carl Romanelli is now asking President Obama to schedule Beer Summit II in order to attempt to resolve his ongoing saga. “We have tried everything possible in order to see justice here in Pennsylvania and we are running out of options,” Romanelli offered.
He is referring to his long ordeal in the Pennsylvania Courts where, despite his gathering and submitting more voter signatures than any candidate in Pennsylvania’s history, Romanelli was not only removed from the 2006 election ballot; but now has to pay more than $80,000.00 in costs and fees for the pleasure of being the victim of such a process.
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“It is time that the President weighed in on this, so I propose that he invite Senator Casey and me to the White House for a beer in an attempt to work matters out,” Romanelli suggested.
The situation in Pennsylvania is one of the strangest scenarios in all of politics, as it is now well known that in order to remove Romanelli from the 2006 ballot the lawyers for Bob Casey brought their challenge to the Green Party signatures by way of an illegal, taxpayer-funded process. The scandal has been dubbed Bonusgate as participants were not only providing attorneys for Casey with their work product while on state time and in state offices using state resources, but these employees also received state-funded bonuses for their effort.
In his July 10, 2008 Presentment, which led to the arrest of ten legislative staffers and two former state representatives, the Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett says, “The two most outstanding examples of misappropriation of taxpayer resources in petition challenges were found in the challenges of Ralph Nader, for President in 2004, and Carl Romanelli, for US Senate in 2006.” (http://www.attorneygeneral.gov/uploadedFiles/Press/Harrisburg-Bonus-GJ-Presentment.pdf)
As it turns out, legislative employees in 2004 and 2006 would be given a crash course in signature challenge by lawyers representing Democratic candidates that wanted Romanelli and Nader off of the ballot. Then these workers would provide the work to attorneys from the law firms of Thorp, Reed, and Armstrong and Reed, Smith out of Pittsburgh. These attorneys later would file the petition challenge in the hope of having independent and third party candidates removed from the ballots in question. Thorp, Reed and Armstrong is the firm used against Romanelli in the ongoing court battles and Attorney Clifford Levine of the firm lists himself as election law counsel for Bob Casey for Senate and deputy counsel for Kerry-Edwards. Many of the legislative employees providing what became the work product for the attorneys were given hefty bonuses for their contribution. Information concerning this process is now public record as a few Preliminary Hearings for various arrested employees has provided detail and insight into this scheme.
“One would think that the commission of crimes against a working class candidate would be enough to get the attention of the Courts, but such is not the case in Pennsylvania. All along I have said that there was nothing wrong with the signatures the Greens submitted in 2006, and there wasn’t. So the Democrats had to rely on their friends who wear robes to finish the job,” Romanelli asserts. “The entire judicial system is corrupted here in Pennsylvania, and I should know because I come from Luzerne County where the disgraced, ‘kids for cash’ judges come from,” he added. “So, since the judges are too crooked for a citizen to use the legal system, we need another way to resolve this shameful persecution and I thought Beer Summit II would be a novel approach. Perhaps then we can bring this nightmare to an end. This would be a big deal for me considering I don’t even drink beer.”
In the absence of Mr. Obama agreeing to a summit at the White House, then Romanelli has offered to play Bob Casey in a game of one-on-one basketball with Romanelli’s political and financial freedom on the line. “As in politics, Casey should have the advantage on the basketball court. He stands at about six feet, three inches; I am five feet five inches; he has access to the best gyms in the country, I still play in schoolyards; and he is a few years younger than I am. Of course, if Casey plays basketball like he plays politics then I’d expect he would hide and send the Philadelphia 76ers starting five to represent him at the game in order to vanquish any hope I had in winning a fair contest.” Romanelli suggested.
“In this instance I feel the sports analogy is appropriate, as Republicans and Democrats are much like pro wrestlers: They point fingers at each other and call each other names when the cameras are rolling, then toast the dummies that keep them rich and powerful as they inhabit the grand halls of, what is supposed to be, the people’s government.”
Green Party of Pennsylvania: http://www.gpofpa.org
Filed under: Action Alert!, activism, campaign finance reform, election, elections, grassroots democracy, politics, Press Release
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