Stacks on Stacks on Stacks: Teachout Submits Nearly 60,000 Petition Signatures

Stacks on Stacks on Stacks: Teachout Submits Nearly 60,000 Petition Signatures

Exceeds Petitioning Requirement by Over 45,000 Signatures

NEW YORK, NY– Zephyr Teachout, constitutional lawyer, corruption expert, and candidate for NYS Attorney General is submitting nearly 60,000 petition signatures to the Board of Elections today, garnering over four times the required 15,000 signatures for statewide offices in New York, and exceeding her campaign goal of 45,000 signatures. Going up against the establishment’s handpicked candidate, Teachout had a little over five weeks to gather enough signatures to secure her place on the ballot in September. A grassroots team of over 400 volunteers throughout the state ensured Teachout would be the insurgent option for voters in September.

“The Democratic Party Establishment made it clear they don’t want me on the ballot. The New York grassroots had other plans. I am so proud of the hard work of our incredible field team and our dedicated volunteers, who have shown such tenacity in resisting the status quo.”
“It shouldn’t be so hard to break into politics. NYS has some of the most restrictive election rules in the country, requiring insurgent candidates for statewide office to get a minimum of 15,000 signatures just to get on the ballot. This prohibitively high threshold often works to limit competition for incumbents and clear a path for the handpicked candidates of the Democratic party, thus denying voters a real choice and their rightful role in a democracy for, of, and by the people,” continued Teachout.

“Not only are our total numbers impressive, we’re submitting thousands of signatures that span the state – a tribute to our widespread base of support. Volunteers made this happen. Now we’re turning that outstanding energy into winning the primary,” said Aly Johnson-Kurts, Field Director for Zephyr Teachout.

“I was thrilled but not surprised to see Zephyr got 60,000 signatures in just a few weeks because she has built a solid grassroots effort. I support Zephyr but I also support a robust primary where we can spend time talking to voters about how their Attorney General matters.  Anyone who cares about the environment, about workers’ rights, and justice for victims of scam and abuse, about equality–basically everyone–should know that Zephyr will fight for ordinary people every day.  She is a tireless advocate and she was meant for this job,” said Lisa Jessup, a super volunteer for the Teachout campaign in New York Congressional District 18.

NYS law requires candidates to collect 15,000 signatures to qualify for the ballot, but candidates are generally advised to collect at least three times that amount to withstand a challenge. The rules about where, how, and who can collect signatures are also highly specific which makes the process all the more fraught.

To view the full press conference click HERE.

Zephyr Teachout is a law professor at Fordham Law School and an expert in constitutional law.

She grew up in a small rural town with a Constitutional Law Professor father who had been active in the civil rights movement, and a mother who is now a state court judge. From an early age, she learned how to herd sheep, weed potatoes, be polite to people that she disagreed with, and never back down from a hard fight.

She believes that Trump poses an existential threat to our democracy, and we’ve got to fight it with every thing we have, including going after illegality in his businesses. Three days after Donald Trump took office, she was on the team of lawyers that filed Citizens for Responsibility in Ethics in Washington v. Trump against Trump because of his violations of the Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution. After his election, she joined the Board of CREW, which has been at the forefront of investigating and bringing lawsuits against the Trump administration (she is currently on leave from the board because of this race).

Her book on the history of anti-corruption laws in the United States, Corruption in America, is widely recognized as a groundbreaking analysis on the subject. Former Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, cited myher anti-corruption research in his dissent in Citizens United.

She believes that corruption is at the root of so many of the problems we face: underfunded schools, overpriced rents, high debt, inequality, unaffordable health care, abuse of workers, environmental devastation.

She has been an independent voice calling out the corruption in Albany, speaking and writing about the trials of Sheldon Silver, Joseph Percoco, and Dean Skelos.

After the 2008 financial crisis, she co-founded an organization, A New Way Forward, bringing grassroots voices to work on Dodd-Frank, and calling for increased prosecutions of financial crimes. She is a national advocate for reviving old principles of antitrust, and recently testified in front of the Congressional Antitrust Caucus.

She started her career representing people on death row, and co-founded an organization dedicated to training young lawyers in underfunded defense trial work. She believes that prosecutors must play a key role in criminal justice reform, and be leaders in the fight against mass incarceration, cash bail, and discriminatory policing: they must support discovery reform and speedy trials. As the former national director of the Sunlight Foundation, she knows the importance of transparency, and believes that the Attorney General should lead the fight for greater transparency in government, corporations, non-profits, and policing.

She received a BA from Yale and graduated JD summa cum laude from Duke Law School, where she was the Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review, and clerked for Chief Judge Edward R. Becker of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals.