Mike Parietti gains 3,000+ signatures to run for Rockland County executive in November
NEW CITY - Rockland voters will likely get a competitive election for county executive on Nov. 4.
Michael Parietti of Ramapo said in a Facebook post that he has filed more than 3,000 signatures on a petition to gain a ballot spot as an independent candidate against County Executive Ed Day, who is running for a fourth, four-year term.
His line is called "Good Gov," according to the Rockland Board of Elections, confirming Parietti filed his petitions on May 27.
The minimum number of signatures is 1,500. Unless Day's campaign offers reasons to knock off more than half of Parietti's signatures, the Ramapo resident will make the ballot.
The Democratic Party line will be blank since no candidate collected the minimum number of signatures.
Parietti said he's giving thousands of Rockland voters a choice. His agenda can be found on his campaign website.
"If not for my candidacy, Day would face no opponent, and the voters would hear no debate on the many pressing issues we face in this pivotal election for the future of Rockland County," Parietti said.
Time will tell if Parietti's petitions withstand scrutiny, Day said on Friday, June 6. Petitions can be challenged before the Rockland Board of Elections on whether election laws have been met. Board of Elections Commissioner Patricia Giblin said two people have filed objections to Parietti's petitions.
"Each and every candidate for elective office submits petitions to the Board of Elections to satisfy numerical and legal requirements," Day said. "Ours has passed muster. If and when Mr. Parietti can say the same thing, we will have further comment."
Day has said he will crisscross the county and spread the word on his record after nearly 12 years in office, specifically his fiscal record and rebuilding the county infrastructure.
Day said his record includes working with the Legislature to dig the county out of a $138 million deficit hole when he took office in January 2014.
A retired NYPD commander and a former Clarkstown civic leader, Day served on the Legislature before winning the county executive office in November 2013.
He won the election overwhelmingly in his last two campaigns, getting 73% of the vote four years ago. He has the GOP and Conservative Party lines in November.
"It's not just what we have done, it's where we have to go," Day has said. "Fiscal issues are continuous. Every day is a challenge."
Parietti, a West Point Military Academy graduate, noted that Day broke his promise of serving two terms.
Parietti has run unsuccessfully for elected offices over the years, including Ramapo supervisor in 2013 and 2015, Ramapo Town Board in 2007, Legislature in 2011 and 2019, and Congress in 2020.
A Preserve Ramapo leader, Parietti has voiced opposition to the influence the predominantly Ramapo Hasidic bloc's vote has on elected officials.
He challenged the Legislature's redistricting plan in court, arguing the plan signed by Day gave the Hasidic community too much power and influence on the governing body at the expense of non-Hasidic residents, including people of color. A state Appellate Division panel rejected Parietti's arguments in 2023.
His website says he's not running to build a political career but to rebuild trust in local government.
"This may be our last best chance to hold a public referendum on Rockland's future," Parietti said. "I believe we can't afford to let this opportunity pass us by."
Steve Lieberman covers government, breaking news, courts, police, and investigations. Reach him at slieberm@lohud.com Twitter: @lohudlegal Read more articles and bio. Our local coverage is only possible with support from our readers.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Mike Parietti gears up for independent Rockland County executive bid
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‘We made a mistake': Pillen accepts responsibility for failed vetoes to Nebraska budget
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. Dec. 10, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner) LINCOLN — Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen has accepted responsibility for mishandled line-item vetoes to the state's next two-year budget while reiterating that many of the suggested cuts will be reconsidered in 2026. Pillen, speaking with the Nebraska Examiner after the Legislature adjourned for the year, said the veto process includes 'human beings' in his office, the Clerk of the Legislature's Office and the Secretary of State's Office. On May 21, his office delivered Legislative Bill 261 and LB 264 with line-item vetoes to the Secretary of State's Office, which is the right place for the bills to go when the Legislature is out of session, but not to the Clerk of the Legislature's Office on the other side of the Capitol, which is where bills must be returned when senators are in session. The Governor's Office says LB 261 was line-item vetoed at 1:08 p.m. on May 21 and LB 264 at 1:10 p.m. A spokesperson for the Secretary of State's Office said the bills were delivered to that office around 5 p.m. the same day. The Legislature did receive a separate letter from Pillen the night of May 21 detailing the line-item vetoes, as well as a copy of the bills with the inscribed vetoes, but lawmakers contended the next day that a line-item veto is constitutional only with the inscribed vetoes on the actual bills. Those bills remained at the Secretary of State's Office until morning. The Nebraska Constitution requires vetoes to be returned within five days of being presented to the governor, excluding Sundays. The bills passed May 15 and went to Pillen's office at 1:12 p.m., so the deadline was by the end-of-day May 21. Pillen said the mistake on the night of May 21 was 'a miscommunication on where it was supposed to go.' Pillen was in Washington, D.C., the following day, for a 'Make America Healthy Again' event at the White House. 'Bottom line: We made a mistake. I'd have thought, because we all work together, that a flag would have been thrown and said, 'Hey, let's do X,' but there wasn't, and then the glass of milk was spilled the next morning,' Pillen told the Examiner. The intended vetoes targeted $14.5 million to the state's general fund and $18 million in repurposed cash funds for improvements at Lake McConaughy. He sought to save $14.5 million that the Legislature's budget aimed to use from the state's 'rainy day' cash reserve by trimming spending — $152 million from the rainy day fund went to help balance the budget. The Nebraska Supreme Court, which faced about $12 million of Pillen's proposed general fund reductions (83%), has said the loss of those funds could close vital court services. This was Pillen's second two-year budget — he vetoed $38.5 million in general fund spending in 2023 for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 fiscal years. Lawmakers restored about $850,000 of the trims. Pillen, Secretary of State Bob Evnen and Speaker of the Legislature John Arch have pledged to clarify the line-item veto process for the budget ahead of 2026, and they've agreed that the suggested reductions should be considered when the budget is adjusted next year. Arch has said that to his knowledge, nothing like this had happened before. Pillen, whose office now insists the matter is resolved, said, 'As I told our team, we look in the mirror, we accept responsibilities. I've not met a human that doesn't make a mistake yet.' Pillen and his staff have declined to detail exactly what happened the night of May 21. Rani Taborek-Potter, a spokesperson for Evnen, said no one from the Secretary of State's Office delivered the actual LB 261 and LB 264 with the line-item vetoes to the Clerk of the Legislature's Office, 'nor is it our office's responsibility to do so.' 'When bills are vetoed by the Governor, the vetoed bills are delivered directly to the Clerk of the Legislature's Office by the Governor's office, as was the case for LB 319 and LB 287 to the best of our knowledge,' Taborek-Potter told the Examiner, referring to the two other bills vetoed this session related to expanding SNAP benefit eligibility and fighting bedbugs in Omaha. Taborek-Potter confirmed the Governor's Office delivered the budget bills to the administrative assistant in the Secretary of State's Office just before 5 p.m. on May 21. The Examiner on May 23 requested all records and communications regarding the line-item vetoes from when the budget bills passed May 15 to the date of the records request. The request sought texts, emails and digital messages. It also asked for communications within the executive branch and between Pillen's office and the legislative branch, including staff and state senators. Documents provided in response indicated that Pillen's veto letter detailing his objections was ready by 6:05 p.m., when the state budget administrator, Neil Sullivan, sent it to Pillen's staff. Around 6:27 p.m., Kenny Zoeller, director of the governor's Policy Research Office, the main research and lobbying arm for Pillen, confirmed the letter among gubernatorial staff. 'We are handing this off back to the Legislature POST adjournment,' Zoeller wrote of next steps. 'I will text when it's handed off.' Laura Strimple, the governor's primary spokesperson, sent a draft news release regarding the vetoes at 8:21 p.m. to Sullivan. It was sent to reporters around 11:23 p.m. The Legislature adjourned at 9:20 p.m., and a reporter could see legislative staff discussing the veto letter. Through much of the day on May 22, legislative leadership met off the floor, including Arch. Several emerged just before adjournment at 2:37 p.m. when Arch announced the vetoes could not be accepted and that the Legislature had concluded they were constitutionally improper. Some members of the Appropriations Committee hugged, threw fists in the air and smiled after. Pillen's spokesperson, Strimple, sent a statement to reporters at 4:48 p.m. stating it was the governor's position that Pillen 'clearly took the legally required steps to exercise his veto authority by surrendering physical possession and the power to approve or reject the bills.' She said the Governor's Office would consult with the Attorney General's Office and other counsel. The Policy Research Office, executive branch budget staff and other members of the governor's staff met around 5 p.m. on May 22. Strimple sent her statement on the governor's position to all members of the governor's staff at 5:23 p.m., then to lawmakers at 5:53 p.m. On May 27, the next legislative day, Pillen, Arch and Evnen released their joint statement around 2:54 p.m., ending the possible constitutional dispute and returning to their respective corners, with no one taking blame for the situation until Pillen spoke with reporters this week. Pillen's office asserts that it searched texts and digital messages as part of the public records request but found no responsive records, including from Zoeller, who had pledged to text after delivering the veto letter in one of the emails. The Governor's Office provided no records reflecting communications with the legislative branch. None of the records indicate what happened to the bills after being delivered to Evnen's office. Evnen, speaking with the Examiner on Friday, reiterated that the Secretary of State's Office's role with legislation is to file it, and 'when it's brought to our office and we're asked to file it, that's what we do.' 'There's a certain amount of confusion, really between the legislative branch and the Governor's Office, about those line-item vetoes, and I think that what we will do is sit down and talk through together how that will be handled. That's a really good thing to do,' he said. Multiple lawmakers beyond Arch have quietly teased the suggestion with the Examiner, asking how much clearer the process can be. Asked if there was a reason the original bills in the Secretary of State's Office by about 5 p.m. could not be delivered by midnight on May 21, Evnen said: 'You would have to ask the Governor's Office.' Strimple, asked about the remaining timeline on May 21 and May 22, said that with the Arch-Evnen-Pillen joint statement, 'The matter is concluded.' One of the top targets of Gov. Jim Pillen's intended line-item vetoes to the state's budget bills was about $12 million in spending earmarked for the Nebraska Supreme Court. Corey Steel, state court administrator for Nebraska, told lawmakers that the line-item vetoes to the courts could eliminate various services, including three problem-solving courts in Lancaster and Sarpy Counties, a drug court in Gov. Jim Pillen's home of Platte County, transition living reimbursements for certain adults and non-statutory services for juveniles on probation. Pillen told the Examiner that while he has the 'utmost respect' for the separation of powers between Nebraska's branches of government, he believes each one must look at government differently. He said the courts have significantly increased spending and have money sitting around. Steel, as well as Chief Justice Jeffrey Funke, have said that position isn't accurate and that increased spending has been in part due to legislation that came without new funds. The judicial branch leaders have said that the 'money' held in various funds is now exhausted. However, Pillen said he's not backing down and that the reductions will be considered in 2026. 'We have to be fiscally responsible,' Pillen said, 'and that's all we're asking.' — Zach Wendling SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
New York Post
2 hours ago
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Pete Hegseth reveals why military recruitment has soared under Trump
Joining 'Fox & Friends' live from Normandy, France, where Allied forces once stormed the beaches to turn the tide of World War II, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth honored the 81st anniversary of D-Day with a message that looked not only to the past but to the future. As the nation honors the bravery and sacrifices of World War II veterans, Hegseth emphasized a new wave of patriotism among today's young Americans – one he says is driving an uptick in military recruitment. Advertisement 'It's historic. Of course it's a morale shift. It shifts back to the day President Trump was elected and then inaugurated,' he said Friday. The Army alone has posted the best recruiting numbers in years, reaching 61,000 for fiscal year 2025, with four months remaining. That's an increase of more than 6,000 from 55,150 in fiscal year 2024. Hegseth told co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt, Lawrence Jones and Brian Kilmeade that the spirit inside the U.S. armed forces is 'incredible' right now, and the morale shift isn't isolated to the Army. 'It's also the Air Force, it's also the Navy, it is also the Marine Corps, Coast Guard and, as the president says, law enforcement,' he continued. Advertisement 4 Pete Hegseth emphasized a new wave of patriotism driving military recruitment under Donald Trump while on Fox & Friends discussing the D-Day 81st anniversary ceremony in Normandy. FOX News 'Across the board, the spirit of our country, [there's a] willingness and desire to serve, because they see leadership that believes in the country that's going to have their back, that says, 'We want you to be warriors. We're not doing this politically correct garbage anymore. We're doing war fighting. We're training, we're preparing, we're focused on [getting] back to basics, and… the young people of America have responded, and they'll continue to respond.' 4 'Across the board, the spirit of our country, [there's a] willingness and desire to serve, because they see leadership that believes in the country that's going to have their back,' Hegseth said. AFP via Getty Images 4 Hegseth gives a speech during an International Commemorative Ceremony of the 81st Anniversary of the Landing of June 6, 1944, in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, north western France. AFP via Getty Images Advertisement 4 President Donald Trump and superintendent Lieutenant General Steven W. Gilland salute graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point in Michie Stadium on May 24 in West Point, NY. Getty Images Hegseth attended this year's ceremony where military officials and veterans commemorated the 81st anniversary of D-Day. He started his morning with a physical training session with rangers from the 75th Ranger Regiment on Omaha Beach at nearly the same time as the first landing craft would have hit in 1944. 'These men [World War II soldiers] were willing to charge toward the guns with almost no chance of success, especially in those first waves, and they did it for us,' he said. Advertisement Days ago, the defense secretary honored the sacrifices of U.S. armed forces at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C., where he greeted a number of World War II veterans whose resolve remains high more than half a century later. 'The contrast of those 100-year-old World War II vets and then those 25-year old Army Rangers that I did a workout with this morning – the blood of fighting for freedom still pumps in the veins of Americans, and we still raise those types, and that's what was really cool to see.'
2 hours ago
A US territory's colonial history emerges in state disputes over voting and citizenship
WHITTIER, Alaska -- Squeezed between glacier-packed mountains and Alaska's Prince William Sound, the cruise-ship stop of Whittier is isolated enough that it's reachable by just a single road, through a long, one-lane tunnel that vehicles share with trains. It's so small that nearly all its 260 residents live in the same 14-story condo building. But Whittier also is the unlikely crossroads of two major currents in American politics: fighting over what it means to be born on U.S. soil and false claims by President Donald Trump and others that noncitizen voter fraud is widespread. In what experts describe as an unprecedented case, Alaska prosecutors are pursuing felony charges against 11 residents of Whittier, most of them related to one another, saying they falsely claimed U.S. citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The defendants were all born in American Samoa, an island cluster in the South Pacific roughly halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand. It's the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship by virtue of having been born on American soil, as the Constitution dictates. Instead, by a quirk of geopolitical history, they are considered 'U.S. nationals' — a distinction that gives them certain rights and obligations while denying them others. American Samoans are entitled to U.S. passports and can serve in the military. Men must register for the Selective Service. They can vote in local elections in American Samoa but cannot hold public office in the U.S. or participate in most U.S. elections. Those who wish to become citizens can do so, but the process costs hundreds of dollars and can be cumbersome. 'To me, I'm an American. I was born an American on U.S. soil,' said firefighter Michael Pese, one of those charged in Whittier. 'American Samoa has been U.S. soil, U.S. jurisdiction, for 125 years. According to the supreme law of the land, that's my birthright.' The status has created confusion in other states, as well. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office. Officials there determined the residents had not intended to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She had always considered it her civic duty to vote, and the form on the voting materials had one box to check: 'U.S. Citizen/U.S. National.' 'I checked that box my entire life,' she said. She also avoided charges, and Hawaii subsequently changed its form to make it more clear. Amid the storm of executive orders issued by Trump in the early days of his second term was one that sought to redefine birthright citizenship by barring it for children of parents who are in the U.S. unlawfully. Another would overhaul how federal elections are run, among other changes requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship. Courts so far have blocked both orders. The Constitution says that 'all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.' It also leaves the administration of elections to the states. The case in Whittier began with Pese's wife, Tupe Smith. After the couple moved to Whittier in 2018, Smith began volunteering at the Whittier Community School, where nearly half of the 55 students were American Samoan — many of them her nieces and nephews. She would help the kids with their English, tutor them in reading and cook them Samoan dishes. In 2023, a seat on the regional school board came open and she ran for it. She was the only candidate and won with about 95% of the vote. One morning a few weeks later, as she was making her two children breakfast, state troopers came knocking. They asked about her voting history. She explained that she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in U.S. presidential elections, but thought she could vote in local or state races. She said she checked a box affirming that she was a U.S. citizen at the instruction of elections workers because there was no option to identify herself as a U.S. national, court records say. The troopers arrested her and drove her to a women's prison near Anchorage. She was released that day after her husband paid bail. 'When they put me in cuffs, my son started crying," Smith told The Associated Press. "He told their dad that he don't want the cops to take me or to lock me up.' About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to Pese, eight other relatives and one man who was not related but came from the same American Samoa village as Pese. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, grew up in another U.S. territory, Guam, and is the co-founder of the Washington-based Right to Democracy Project, whose mission is 'confronting and dismantling the undemocratic colonial framework governing people in U.S. territories.' He suggested the prosecutions are aimed at 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. 'There is no question that Ms. Smith lacked an intent to mislead or deceive a public official in order to vote unlawfully when she checked 'U.S. citizen' on voter registration materials,' he wrote in a brief to the Alaska Court of Appeals last week, after a lower court judge declined to dismiss the charges. Prosecutors say her false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' The unique situation of American Samoans dates to the 19th century, when the U.S. and European powers were seeking to expand their colonial and economic interests in the South Pacific. The U.S. Navy secured the use of Pago Pago Harbor in eastern Samoa as a coal-refueling station for military and commercial vessels, while Germany sought to protect its coconut plantations in western Samoa. Eventually the archipelago was divided, with the western islands becoming the independent nation of Samoa and the eastern ones becoming American Samoa, overseen by the Navy. The leaders of American Samoa spent much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries arguing that its people should be U.S. citizens. Birthright citizenship was eventually afforded to residents of other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. Congress considered it for American Samoa in the 1930s, but declined. Some lawmakers cited financial concerns during the Great Depression while others expressed patently racist objections, according to a 2020 article in the American Journal of Legal History. Supporters of automatic citizenship say it would particularly benefit the estimated 150,000 to 160,000 nationals who live in the states, many of them in California, Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, Utah and Alaska. 'We pay taxes, we do exactly the same as everybody else that are U.S. citizens,' Smith said. 'It would be nice for us to have the same rights as everybody here in the states.' But many in American Samoa eventually soured on the idea, fearing that extending birthright citizenship would jeopardize its customs — including the territory's communal land laws. Island residents could be dispossessed by land privatization, not unlike what happened in Hawaii, said Siniva Bennett, board chair of the Samoa Pacific Development Corporation, a Portland, Oregon-based nonprofit. 'We've been able to maintain our culture, and we haven't been divested from our land like a lot of other indigenous people in the U.S.,' Bennett said. In 2021, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. Several jurisdictions across the country, including San Francisco and the District of Columbia, allow people who are not citizens to vote in certain local elections. Tafilisaunoa Toleafoa, with the Pacific Community of Alaska, said the situation has been so confusing that her organization reached out to the Alaska Division of Elections in 2021 and 2022 to ask whether American Samoans could vote in state and local elections. Neither time did it receive a direct answer, she said. 'People were telling our community that they can vote as long as you have your voter registration card and it was issued by the state,' she said. Finally, last year, Carol Beecher, the head of the state Division of Elections, sent Toleafoa's group a letter saying American Samoans are not eligible to vote in Alaska elections. But by then, the voting forms had been signed. 'It is my hope that this is a lesson learned, that the state of Alaska agrees that this could be something that we can administratively correct,' Toleafoa said. 'I would say that the state could have done that instead of prosecuting community members.'
