Oliver Honored By Independence Party
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- February
- 20
Laureen Oliver, who helped found the state’s Independence Party and was its first chair, was honored by the party last week and unanimously named its first chairman emeritus.
“Be it resolved that Independence Party of New York recognizes Chairman Oliver’s great work on the party’s behalf,” the one-page resolution states.
The resolution comes as Oliver and close ally Tom Golisano, who founded the party in the early 1990s, are working with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to revamp the party. Golisano ran three times for governor under the party’s banner, allowing it to gain the third position on the state’s ballot.
Oliver teamed up with Golisano last year to start Responsible New York, which with Golisano’s money pumped nearly $5 million into state legislative races last year.
“I’m very happy about it,” Oliver said of the recognition. “It’s nice to know that after 15 years they recognize my role in reform with the Independence Party and Responsible New York.”
Party chairman Frank MacKay said the honor is “long overdue” and “without her and without Tom we wouldn’t be here.”
MacKay said he welcomes the involvement of Bloomberg and Golisano in their party’s future.
“I think we’re going to have a much better party with their involvement,” he said.
This entry was posted
on Friday, February 20th, 2009 at 3:02 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
