MARIJUANA REFORMER SURVIVES CHALLENGE

Albany -- Green Party members fail to oust former supporter from ballot line

At least one candidate on the ballot for the governor's race will admit to
smoking pot.

Tom Leighton running on the Marijuana Reform Party line, beat a petition
challenge this week in a case decided by the state Board of Elections.
Leighton is hoping to unseat Gov. George Pataki, who says that instead of
smoking marijuana, he ate it with baked beans.

Leighton, 47, a Manhattan photographer who has run for Congress and New York
City borough president, is campaigning for the legalization of marijuana.

AGreen Party member and former ally, Richard Hirsh, from Brooklyn,
challenged the petitions that qualified Leighton to be on the Nov. 3 ballot.
On Thursday, the state Board of Elections decided the petitions were valid.

Ironically, Leighton was a member of the Green Party in the past, but the
candidate and the party had a falling out over feminist issues, according to
chairman Mark Dunlea. The Greens are running Al Lewis, better known as
Grandpa Munster from the 1960s "Munsters'' television series, for governor.

"The Greens went after us and I don't understand; all we want is to be
included in the democratic process,'' Leighton said, who ran twice as a
Green Party candidate for Congress.

Leighton said he supports the Green platform and has been wrongly accused of
being anti-feminist although he split with the group because he advocated a
greater focus on environmental issues.

Dunlea said the challenge was mounted by some individual members of the
party and not the organization itself or the leadership.

He said Hirsh acted on his own.

The election board did throw out the petitions of the Term Limits Party, a
group seeking to set limits on the number of terms elected leaders can
hold -- for instance three terms for Congress and two for U.S. Senate.
Lawyer Gary Sinawski of New York City is challenging that determination in a
case scheduled for argument Friday in state Supreme Court in Albany. Hoping
to run on the Term Limits line are: Judith Lowenstein Feder for governor;
Mark Dane for lieutenant governor; Jonathan LeWinter for attorney general;
Steve MacIntyre for comptroller; and Taffy Benjamin for U.S. Senate.

The Board of Elections accepted about 9,500 of the 30,200 signatures
submitted by the party. Officials said the problem with the majority was
that many were signed by unregistered voters or other faults.

Checked-by: Rolf Ernst