Carl Romanelli

When Sen. Rick Santorum (R., Pa.) encouraged everyone in state politics to help the Green Party earn a spot on the November ballot, at least one group answered the call: Santorum donors. Fourteen Santorum supporters gave $40,000 to fund a petition drive that has allowed Carl Romanelli to collect about 100,000 voter signatures to qualify for the Senate race. That's 33,000 more signatures than required, and double what independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader gathered here in 2004.

The tentacles of the Bonusgate scandal have spread to past presidential politics. Buried deep in the grand jury report, released last week, that led to the indictment of 12 people are details of what is described as a "massive" effort by House Democrats to oust the independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the ballot in 2004. Also, the report says, in 2006 the same machine fired up again to boot from the ballot Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in a race won by Democrat Bob Casey.

Serves them right, if Democratic leaders in Harrisburg are worried now that independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader has landed on the November ballot. It was due to the Democrats' successful challenge of Nader's petition signatures in 2004 that the long-time consumer watchdog and political gadfly was tossed off the ballot when John Kerry ran against President Bush. That alone would be enough to fire up Nader supporters to do the job right this time. That they have done.

IN LESS THAN a generation, the Green Party has morphed from dedicated idealists to naive pawns to outright whores. As reported last week by Daily News reporter and blogger Will Bunch (www.attytood.com), the petition drive by Carl Romanelli, Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate, was funded by Republicans who support Sen. Rick Santorum for re-election. The money went to hire JSM Inc., a Florida firm that pays people to gather petitions and that has garnered a reputation for deceit and downright fraud.

I'M A LIFELONG Daily News reader and am admittedly anti-casino. I was shocked that the DN is willing to lay down arms after securing a victory in a small skirmish in what should be a much larger war on the state Gaming Control Board. You could wage war on their poor performance fulfilling right-to-know requests and including the public in the process. You could fight the war on their granting licenses to politically connected yet questionable applicants. It seems you're ceasing hostilities before engaging in any real conflict.

In the old days, moms stayed fit by toting kids, cleaning house My mother celebrated her 90th birthday in June. Mom has never been overweight or suffered with arthritis or osteoporosis. She has also never attended a gym, lifted weights, used a stationary bicycle, run, jogged, or swum laps. After thinking about Mom, and reading the commentary pieces on July 27, this occurred to me: American moms today have outsourced exercise. In the 1940s and '50s, my mom worked her biceps by lifting her babies and toddlers in and out of cribs, high chairs, playpens, and baby carriages.

If you want to run for public office in Pennsylvania, and you're neither a Republican nor a Democrat, you'd better be prepared to bet the farm. Carl Romanelli learned that lesson the hard way after campaigning for U.S. Senate on the Green Party ticket in 2006. After a successful challenge to his nomination petitions by Democrats, represented by Thorp, Reed & Armstrong, the Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg charged Romanelli with more than $80,000 in litigation costs. Romanelli, a retired family court officer, says that would "destroy" him financially.

RE THE letter "Why Police Officer has to Go" by Darin Toliver: Mr. Toliver, as vice president of Black Men at the Penn School of Social Work, if police officer Thomas Schaffling were black, would you have written the same letter you did knowing he is white? I didn't see you writing about John Street, and he was in the spotlight a lot more than Officer Schaffling. How about the detective who tipped off Ace Capone or the cop who was robbing drug dealers? The only difference between these two and Schaffling is their race.

Pennsylvania election law treats third-party candidates like outsiders at the gates of an exclusionary country club. The state should open the gates to ballot access. The latest outsider is Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate. A state judge on Monday tossed Romanelli off the ballot because he didn't collect enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions. To qualify for the ballot, the state says Romanelli needs at least 67,070 signatures of registered voters - nearly the attendance at an Eagles home game.

It might be the hardest-fought voter signature of the U.S. Senate campaign. A scuffle broke out yesterday in Harrisburg as Democratic and Green Party representatives reviewed petitions to determine whether Carl Romanelli, the Green's Senate candidate, has enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot. It was the fifth straight day that the campaign rivals were essentially locked in a room at the Department of State, scrutinizing tens of thousands of signatures to settle a ballot challenge by the Democrats.

By Oliver Hall Pennsylvanians may notice something unusual when they go to the polls in November: Their choices for governor, lieutenant governor, and U.S. Senate will be limited exclusively to Republican and Democratic candidates. Only four other states' 2010 general-election ballots are so restrictive. What makes Pennsylvania unique, however - and suggests that something has gone seriously wrong here in the birthplace of America - is that the shortage of choices has been effectively imposed by the courts.

For Marakay Rogers, one of the big issues in this fall's election for Pennsylvania governor is what it took for her to gain a spot on the ballot as a third-party candidate. "It's completely absurd," she said Monday after filing her nominating petition with the Department of State in Harrisburg. Republican Tom Corbett and Democrat Dan Onorato were required to collect 2,000 voter signatures each to gain a place on the May 18 primary ballots of their respective parties. But for Rogers to get on the November ballot as a candidate of the Libertarian Party, she was required by state law to submit 19,082 signatures.

RE THE letter "Why Police Officer has to Go" by Darin Toliver: Mr. Toliver, as vice president of Black Men at the Penn School of Social Work, if police officer Thomas Schaffling were black, would you have written the same letter you did knowing he is white? I didn't see you writing about John Street, and he was in the spotlight a lot more than Officer Schaffling. How about the detective who tipped off Ace Capone or the cop who was robbing drug dealers? The only difference between these two and Schaffling is their race.

Ralph Nader continues to shine an unflattering light on Pennsylvania's political system, with good reason. Nader wrote a letter this week to state Attorney General Tom Corbett (a candidate for governor), calling attention to court testimony about Democrats' effort to knock Nader off the presidential ballot in 2004. A witness in the ongoing corruption trial of former high-ranking Democratic Rep. Mike Veon testified recently that employees of the legislature worked on state time and used taxpayer-funded resources to challenge Nader's candidacy in court.

Voter act would level the field Thanks for The Inquirer's fine coverage of Green Party candidate Carl Romanelli ("Third-party candidate comes up twice a loser," Oct. 30). Why should third-party candidates be continually used and abused by the two-party duopoly and then excluded and heavily fined for just trying to be a candidate? The Voters' Choice Act would give us real democracy with multiple choices. The legislation would level the field for all political parties, large or small, requiring each to collect 2,000 signatures prior to being listed on the ballot.

He may have been starry-eyed, but he wasn't a fool. Carl Romanelli, a divorced father of two grown sons from Wilkes-Barre, knew that as the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2006, he'd have a hard time beating the big boys in the race: Republican incumbent Rick Santorum and Democrat Bob Casey. But he hoped to focus on his issues: an end to the Iraq war, health insurance, the rights of women and gays. He did not foresee that, first, he'd get knocked off the ballot and, three years later, both he and his lawyer would be facing a $80,407 bill for the expenses incurred by foes who challenged Romanelli's nominating petition.

If you want to run for public office in Pennsylvania, and you're neither a Republican nor a Democrat, you'd better be prepared to bet the farm. Carl Romanelli learned that lesson the hard way after campaigning for U.S. Senate on the Green Party ticket in 2006. After a successful challenge to his nomination petitions by Democrats, represented by Thorp, Reed & Armstrong, the Commonwealth Court in Harrisburg charged Romanelli with more than $80,000 in litigation costs. Romanelli, a retired family court officer, says that would "destroy" him financially.

Serves them right, if Democratic leaders in Harrisburg are worried now that independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader has landed on the November ballot. It was due to the Democrats' successful challenge of Nader's petition signatures in 2004 that the long-time consumer watchdog and political gadfly was tossed off the ballot when John Kerry ran against President Bush. That alone would be enough to fire up Nader supporters to do the job right this time. That they have done.

The tentacles of the Bonusgate scandal have spread to past presidential politics. Buried deep in the grand jury report, released last week, that led to the indictment of 12 people are details of what is described as a "massive" effort by House Democrats to oust the independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader from the ballot in 2004. Also, the report says, in 2006 the same machine fired up again to boot from the ballot Carl Romanelli, the Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in a race won by Democrat Bob Casey.

Pennsylvania election law treats third-party candidates like outsiders at the gates of an exclusionary country club. The state should open the gates to ballot access. The latest outsider is Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate for U.S. Senate. A state judge on Monday tossed Romanelli off the ballot because he didn't collect enough valid signatures on his nominating petitions. To qualify for the ballot, the state says Romanelli needs at least 67,070 signatures of registered voters - nearly the attendance at an Eagles home game.