Cortlandt Resident Bows Out From Challenging Levenberg for Assembly
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A Cortlandt woman has thrown in the towel in a bid to challenge Assemblywoman Dana Levenberg (D-Ossining) in a Democratic primary following a court challenge over her qualifying petitions.
Amanda Victoria Mintz, a business owner who has never run for elected office, pulled out of the race on Apr. 29 after the state Board of Elections determined signatures on petitions she submitted that were going to be invalidated would leave her short of the 500 needed to be on the primary ballot in June in the 95th Assembly District.
“There exists a nasty playbook for career politicians and their lawyers, to step-by-step use tax dollars via government resources to defend their positions during campaign season. Atrocious,” Victoria Mintz stated. “I did not set out to harm Dana Levenberg as I feel she did me just for trying to run against her, but I did feel there was substantial room for improvement in our community pertaining to the assemblyperson role.”
Victoria Mintz, a Carmel High School graduate who has lived in Cortlandt since 2020, said she and her husband collected 655 signatures, many from the Village of Croton-on-Hudson. One of the objections raised by Levenberg and her team, that included former assemblywoman Sandy Galef and former Westchester County legislator Catherine Borgia, was residents of Croton should have listed that they lived in the Town of Cortlandt. About 150 people that signed were also found not to be registered voters.
“It is important that all candidates for public office understand and follow established election laws,” Galef stated. “I served on the Assembly Election Law Committee for 30 years, passing many laws to make elections more transparent and accessible to the voter. The legislature passed laws to establish rules for petitioning to be on the ballot. The petitions submitted by Amanda Victoria Mintz show a disregard for the election laws of New York State, and should be dismissed by the state Board of Elections and our Supreme Court.”
Victoria Mintz characterized the challenges to her efforts as “bullying tactics and abuse of our systems in place.”
“All to keep me off the ballot, guaranteeing a win for herself (Levenberg), and disenfranchising voters and the will of the people to choose their government representatives,” Victoria Mintz stated.
Levenberg, who was endorsed by every local Democratic committee and the Working Families Party, is running for a second two-year term. According to the state Board of Elections, Michael Capalbo is looking to unseat Levenberg on the Republican line.
When asked for a comment on Victoria Mintz’s remarks, the Levenberg campaign issued a statement.
“Assemblywoman Levenberg is focused on serving the people of the 95th Assembly District and the bills she is working to pass before the end of the legislative session,” the statement said.
Meanwhile, Victoria Mintz, who is Puerto Rican and believes more Hispanic representatives are needed in government, aspires to run for Congress in the future.
“We’re underrepresented in almost everything across the board,” she said. “I feel I will make a difference in local government.”
No Dem Primary in 17th District
Last week, former Bedford supervisor Mary Ann Carr ended her effort to take on Democrat Mondaire Jones in a potential 17th Congressional District primary.
Last month, Carr ent to state Supreme Court arguing that because the petitioning period was shortened by two days this year due to the tweaking of the congressional lines by the state’s Independent Redistricting Committee, that prevented her from collecting the required 1,250 signatures to get on the ballot. She had gotten 1,123 names on her petition.
Following a hearing at the state Board of Elections, Carr released an Apr. 29 statement thanking her volunteers and supporters for their efforts and encouraging them to remain engaged.
“While this is not the outcome we hoped for, it does not diminish the volume of our work or the importance of the causes we champion,” Carr’s statement read in part. “Our campaign was built on principles of fairness, equity, and justice, and these are principles that will continue to guide me as I remain committed to our community and to public service.”
Martin Wilbur contributed to this article.
Rick has more than 40 years’ experience covering local news in Westchester and Putnam counties, running the gamut from politics and crime to sports and human interest. He has been an editor at Examiner Media since 2012. Read more from Rick’s editor-author bio here. Read Rick’s work here: https://www.theexaminernews.com/author/pezzullo_rick-writer/
