Philip Pidot on Wednesday filed a new federal lawsuit to force a Republican primary in the Third Congressional District, two days after filing a separate appeal to a state court ruling.
The filings in federal District Court and the state’s Appellate Division argue that Pidot should be allowed to compete with state Sen. Jack Martins of Old Westbury in a primary later this summer because he has enough signatures from voters to get on the ballot.
“It’s a carefully coordinated legal strategy to best ensure success,” Bill O’Reilly, a Pidot spokesman, said in an email.
The new federal suit came a week after Pidot dismissed the first one he filed June 27 so his newly hired attorney, Jerry Goldfeder of Manhattan-based Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, could “enhance” the complaint, Goldfeder said in a statement last week.
That canceled a federal court hearing set for Monday. A state Appellate Division court hearing is now set for July 19.
The moves continue a more than two-month court battle over whether there should be a GOP primary between Pidot, of Glen Cove, and Martins, who has backing from the Republican, Independence and Conservative parties in the North Shore district stretching from northeast Queens to northwest Suffolk County.
In a statement Tuesday, Martins’ campaign strategist, E. O’Brien Murray, called Pidot a “perennial fringe candidate” and noted that he filed a motion to withdraw his federal lawsuit the same day Martins’ legal team filed a response.
“His actions confirm what we have said all along — he has been needlessly delaying this process in an effort to help Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats,” Murray said in a statement.
Pidot’s campaign said last Thursday it hired Goldfeder because John Sweeney, the lawyer who represented Pidot in lower courts, will be traveling to the Republican National Convention, which begins July 18 in Cleveland.
Pidot’s original complaint asked Judge Joseph Bianco to reschedule the primary for later this summer after a ruling by state Supreme Court Judge Arthur Diamond on June 24 that there was not enough time to get Pidot’s name on the ballot for the June 28 primary.
Martins won the Republican Party’s endorsement in March, but will not be certified for the general election ballot against Democrat Tom Suozzi until September.
Diamond found Pidot had the required 1,250 signatures from Republican voters to make him eligible for a primary even though the state Board of Elections said otherwise.
But he waited too long to appeal the Supreme Court’s dismissal of his challenge to the Board of Elections ruling, Diamond said.
Martins’ attorneys appealed the part of Diamond’s ruling that validated Pidot’s ballot petition and argued that the case should have been dismissed because Pidot delayed his appeals for so long that he prevented the primary from happening.
Pidot’s campaign has countered that Martins’ lawyers dragged out court proceedings.
