Wilson Pakula

A Wilson Pakula is an authorization given by a political party to a candidate for public office in the State of New York that allows the candidate not registered with that party to run as its candidate in a given election.

The name refers to the Wilson Pakula Act of 1947, authored by state senator Irwin Pakula and then-assemblyman (and future governor) Malcolm Wilson, which forbids candidates from receiving the nomination of a political party if they are not registered as a member of that party, unless they receive permission to enter the primary from party officials representing a majority of the vote in the jurisdiction.

In the 1940s, both the Republican and Democratic parties in New York became concerned that members of other political parties, especially the American Labor Party (ALP), were running candidates in their party primary elections and winning the nominations. While Democrats and Republicans had won elections with the support of the ALP in the past, accusations of the party's ties to Communists and the increasing tension of the Cold War were making these alliances less desirable. It has been asserted that the law was targeted specifically at Congressman Vito Marcantonio of East Harlem who won the nominations of both the Republican and Democratic parties after joining the ALP.

New York Mayor William O'Dwyer advocated removing the influence of the ALP from the Democratic Party. After ALP candidates were successful in winning Republican nominations, Governor Thomas Dewey, who had run for district attorney with ALP support in 1937, turned against the party and sought to extricate the party from GOP primaries. On March 25, 1947, Dewey signed the Wilson Pakula Act into law. Its first target, Marcantonio, narrowly won re-election in 1948 running only on the ALP line, but was defeated in 1950.

Challenges to the law's constitutionality were denied in a number of cases in New York State. In Werbel v Gernstein (1948), the court held that "the Wilson-Pakula Law was designed to protect the integrity of political parties and to prevent the invasion into or the capture of control of political parties by persons not in sympathy with the principles of such political parties".

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