News

January 25, 2008

Romanelli’s fight enters new phase

Would-be Senate candidate alleges entire Democratic Party, courts against him.

Carl Romanelli is going to Washington, and he’s hoping to take down an entire political party on his way there.

While planning to appeal his yearlong legal battle to the U.S. Supreme Court, he announced on Thursday his assault on the Democratic Party, starting with its members in the state judiciary.

Romanelli, of Wilkes-Barre, briefly gained national notoriety in 2006 when he jumped into what pundits considered one of the nation’s most controversial U.S. Senate campaigns between former GOP Sen. Rick Santorum and current Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Scranton.

Democrats successfully challenged many of the signatures the Romanelli campaign collected, resulting in his being booted from the ballot.

He took the argument to court and was saddled with what he feels are unfair fees totaling about $80,000 imposed by a biased state court system.

Romanelli said he believes that he was ousted from the ballot illegally and alleges the entire Democratic Party is complicit in keeping third-party candidates off ballots.

“Can you quote that I laughed at that?” responded Democratic Party spokesman Abe Amoros when told of Romanelli’s charge. “Carl needs to let it go. Carl lost in 2006. Carl cannot articulate his position. It’s 2008, and we have far more important issues to deal with than Mr. Romanelli’s sour grapes.”

Part of the court’s decision was based on Romanelli’s inability to field enough volunteers for signature-counting sessions, but Romanelli believes he has found at least one of the Democrats’ volunteers was a state-paid legislative aide who was part of a group that received tax-paid monetary bonuses.

The state Supreme Court recently denied Romanelli’s petition to clarify and allow re-argument of the case, so he’s now planning to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari, or the right to argue before the court.

Concurrently, he has asked state Attorney General Tom Corbett’s office to investigate the conduct of the state judiciary in his case, believing that the Democratic judges involved were biased.

“I was denied my right to be one of those representatives despite doing everything the state said I had to do to qualify,” he said. “I was threatened, and I was denied the ability to enter evidence. My only crime was not being a Democrat or a Republican.”

Beyond his arguments of impropriety by both the courts and the party, Romanelli said he feels his case hinges on constitutional rights that similar previous cases did not, including rights to run for election, speak freely, receive due process in legal matters, and, because of the fees, the right to vote without paying a tax.

“After everything I’ve been through, I’d be remiss to be confident about anything even if I think we have a strong case,” he said, but noted he was “cautiously optimistic.”

The state Attorney General’s Office did not return calls for comment.

Rory Sweeney, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 970-7418.

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