Thinking of running for office in New York as an outsider?
Good luck getting on the ballot. And anyone who doubts the difficulty of that can just ask Clyde Williams Jr.
Williams is one of many Democrats who, understandably, believe ethically compromised Rep. Charles Rangel has been in office long enough.
A rookie pol who served as a domestic policy director in the Clinton White House, Williams decided to run against the dean of New York’s congressional delegation in a primary that includes state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, community activist Craig Schley and others.
Williams has been relatively successful raising cash: So far, he’s come up with about $118,000 — almost as much as Rangel and Espaillat combined.
But he’s under significant attack on another front: His petition to get on the ballot is facing numerous challenges.
It’s a vivid reminder of the stacked deck against newcomers when it comes to running for office here.
Fact is, New York’s ballot laws are intentionally written to discourage challenges. That helps the party bosses keep outsiders out, so they can pick and choose who gets to run — and, ultimately, who’ll take office.
Sure, challenging petitions — in races from dog-catcher to president — is a longstanding American tradition.
And, often, for good reason. Plenty of unscrupulous pols try to get on ballots the easy way: via fraud.
But, again, in New York the laws — and the legal sparring they spur — are part of a system rigged to benefit the political establishment.
Indeed, New York Dems have already bent over backward to keep Rangel in power — by trying to gerrymander his district to maximize its number of black voters.
That was done to fend off political threats from a fast-growing Latino population, a constituency Espaillat is eying.
But those efforts would fail anyway if multiple black candidates for the Harlem seat split the black vote — and Williams, like Rangel an African-American, may be poised to do just that.
Which might explain the petition challenges.
Williams, to be sure, has some 6,000 signatures — six times as many as are needed.
So he might well be safe.
But countless other New Yorkers who want to take on the establishment aren’t always so lucky.
Whether through ballot-access laws, gerrymandering or a range of other tools, New York’s political kingpins — of both major parties — are able to shut the door on their budding political forays.
It serves the bosses well.
But it denies the rest of New Yorkers their full democratic rights.