Greens for Greens ™

[From: Green Party Watch]

by Gregg Jocoy

Back in 2006 Carl Romanelli sought to run as a Green Party candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania. His ballot access petitions were challenged. He was tossed off the ballot. Later he was charged the costs of the challenger’s expenses. Pennsylvania is the only state to do this. It’s important to understand that that Romanelli was not fined, as he did nothing illegal.

Later it was revealed that some of the challenges were undertaken by state employees working on the taxpayer dollar on behalf of the Democratic nominee. Yesterday seven people pleaded guilty in this case. The story was reported at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The article includes this:

Observers in the courtroom included Carl Romanelli, who ran in 2006 as a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate. Some of the charges in the Bonusgate case revolve around allegations that Democratic staffers worked on state time to challenge signatures on his election petitions in an attempt to knock him off the ballot and secure more votes for Democrat Bob Casey.
Yesterday’s guilty pleas were good news for third-party candidates who have a hard enough time running against majority parties when everyone plays by the rules, Mr. Romanelli said.

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Carl Romanelli petitioned as the Green Party candidate for US Senate in Pennsylvania in 2006. He needed about 67,000 signatures and collected about 94,000. As the result of Democratic candidate Bob Casey Jr.'s efforts, Carl was thrown off the ballot and charged $80,000 in court costs. Since then a number of Democratic employees involved in the petition challenge have been arrested and charged with using public funds to target political opponents . . . which included Carl Romanelli.

Romanelli issued a press release, just days ago, challenging Bob Casey Jr to a basketball match for the money. Additionally Carl asked that President Obama invite him and Casey to the Whitehouse for a beer summit to work out their differences.

Carl's court case to set aside these fees goes back to the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court in a few days.

Watch the LIVE INTERVIEW as Carl updates us on the story. Viewers will be able to ask Carl question via live text chat.

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 displaced 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. “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.”