Former Mayor Lovely Warren can stay on the ballot for City Court Judge, state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Doyle ruled Monday.
Warren’s Democratic primary election opponent, Michael Geraci, filed the lawsuit. He argued that Warren should be tossed off the ballot because the Board of Elections received petitions for Warren to run for a seat on the Monroe County Democratic Committee’s 27th Legislative District committee in addition to the City Court seat. In similar past cases, when a person has filed for both a judicial and political office, they’ve been blocked from appearing on the ballot.
But in his decision, Doyle wrote that Warren’s case did not rise to the level of “a desire to commit fraud on the public.” In other words, if Warren had been aware of the committee seat petitions, that would have been grounds to remove her from the ballot. But Doyle wrote that he determined that was not the case.
Last week in court, Warren said that she was unaware of the petitions for the Democratic Committee seat. Those petitions were filed by LaShay Harris, City Council’s vice president and 27th Legislative District Committee leader. Harris acknowledged that she filed the petitions without Warren’s knowledge or consent.
The deadline to decline the nomination as a candidate for either office was April 8. Warren did not receive notice that petitions had been filed for her to run for a committee seat until receiving a letter from the Board of Elections on April 11. Warren said she ignored that letter because it bore a 2022 date rather than a 2024 one. That error was also acknowledged by Republican Board of Elections Commissioner Lisa Nicolay.
Geraci filed his case on April 18. Warren filed her declination for the Democratic Committee seat the following day.
Warren also testified that she had told Lashana Boose, leader of the 28th Legislative District that that she couldn’t run for a seat on that committee due to her plan to run for a City Court judge seat.
“This compels the inference that Warren was aware that she could not seek the nomination for both offices and that she took no efforts to be nominated for the party position in the 28th (district),” the decision reads.
Warren was first elected as mayor of Rochester in 2013. She lost the primary election for a third term to Malik Evans in 2021 and later stepped down to satisfy a campaign finance violation conviction.
A decision in a separate case, released Monday, blocks Republican and Conservative Party candidate Nicole Bayly from appearing on the ballot for Family Court judge. Monroe County GOP chair had filed petitions for the seat in his name, to serve as a placeholder until the party found a suitable candidate. The party substituted Bayly for Reilly on April 1.
But Reilly is not licensed to practice law, and therefore was not legally qualified to run for family court judge. By law, the position requires at least 10 years’ experience practicing law.
“As Reilly’s nomination is a nullity, the certificate of substitution naming Bayly as the Republican Party and Conservative Party (candidate) must be invalidated,” the decision reads.
