Politics
Lawyer Sues to Run for N.Y.C. Mayor on Independence Party Line
Jim Walden, who left the Democratic Party years ago, is challenging a law that bans the word “independence” on a ballot line.
A prominent lawyer who is a candidate for mayor of New York City filed a lawsuit on Monday seeking to run on the Independence Party line in the general election in November.
The lawyer, Jim Walden, left the Democratic Party more than a decade ago and hopes to run as a third-party candidate.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, argues that a state law enacted in 2022 that prohibits the use of the word “independence” on a ballot line is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit calls the law a “naked attempt to limit competitive elections, enforcing a duopoly between the Democratic and Republican parties.”
Mr. Walden, a former prosecutor who is running on an anti-corruption platform, said in an interview that it made sense for him, as a political outsider, to run on the Independence Party ballot line, as former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg did in 2001, 2005 and 2009. Mr. Walden has said that he is a political independent and has some views that are liberal some that are conservative.
“I think that people are sick and tired of the extremes of the parties driving the conversation,” he said. “People want to focus on the pocketbook issues that matter to them.”
