As seen in The Spirit (West Side) and Our Town (East Side) Aug. 14, 2008.

Surrogate’s race draws big political guns–but not much interest from voters

In New York, sometimes standing out in a crowd can be difficult. On the corner of Broadway and West 96th Street one humid evening, John Reddy, Jr., a candidate for New York County Surrogate’s Court, competed for attention with a pair of people promoting a paint sale and a scattering of MTA employees advising commuters that a station entrance was closed.

In his khakis, blue shirt and red striped tie, Reddy might have blended in with the passing New Yorkers. But he was standing still, and two staffers forming a wall of campaign signs behind him.

“Hi, Manhattan Democrat?” he chirped, roughly 30 times a minute, while shaking hand with and passing campaign flyers to anyone who stopped.

One man—one of a small pool of passers by who seemed to know about the Surrogate’s Court—stopped for a brief chat, expressing frustration at what he perceives as corruption on the court. Reddy, who is running on a platform of ideas to change the way the court was run, tried to make his case to the man. He did not appear to succeed.

“There’s nothing you can do about it, John,” he said.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Reddy called after him.

Reddy is not the only candidate talking change in the race to succeed Judge Renee Roth, who is aging off the court at 70 this year. The Surrogate’s Court settles matters concerning adoptions, guardians, estates and wills of the deceased, but once again this year, the debate about its future is a lively one.

And like the Upper West Side corner, the race is crowded, with Judge Milton Tingling and Nora Anderson also vying for the Democratic nomination in the Sept. 9 primary.

Surrogate laws and practices are idiosyncratic. The three candidates agree that the general public is unfamiliar with the court, and that lawyers who practice in court are not always well informed, either. The candidates also hope to speed up litigation time.

The primary race has already drawn more attention than normal due to the number of big names in local politics it has drawn. As a consultant, Reddy has hired The Parkside Group, which has helped several members of the city council and state legislature as well as current Surrogate, Kristin Booth Glenn, win elections. Chung Seto, and Kevin Wardally of Bill Lynch Associates, who have worked for Hillary Clinton’s campaigns, among others, are overseeing Tingling’s fundraising and campaigning. Tingling also counts former Mayor David Dinkins and Rep. Charles Rangel among his most public supporters. Nora Anderson has Michael Oliva, a long-time grassroots organizer and political strategist, managing her campaign, while Lisa Hernandez Gioia of The Esler Group, which has consulted for Gov. David Paterson among other candidates, doing her fundraising.

Tingling, who has been a Supreme Court justice in Manhattan for seven years, has also been out meeting voters. Recently, Council Member Inez Dickens stood next to Tingling along 135th Street, announcing his presence to the people tricking into the subway station.

“Good morning, good morning! This is Judge Tingling, he’s running for Surrogate’s Court. Please support him, he’s from my community,” she shouted, nearly drowning out buses and trucks on Lenox Avenue. Behind her, staff from a consulting firm handed flyers to commuters.

Tingling greeted people more intimately, turning every handshake into an elongated grasp.

One woman stopped, looking confused. The candidate approached asking slowly, “No habla inglés?” When she shook her head, Tingling turned his flyer over, revealing his qualifications written in Spanish.

Translators, Tingling said, are just part of the two-pronged approach to making the court more accessible to Manhattan’s diverse population. Translators could not only assist those involved with cases in the court, but can help teach people about wills and estates. Such meetings could take place in the satellite court offices Tingling said he hopes to open, if elected.

Most people know little about the Surrogate’s Court beyond being familiar with celebrity cases, like those of Woody Allen, Brooke Astor and J. Seward Johnson, or when they land in the court themselves. Tingling hopes to enhance the court’s profile so that the first experience the average New Yorker has there is not as a litigant.

“There are cases going on there, there are people being affected all the time, but nobody knows,” he said, “It’s basically a secret court.”

Reddy also hopes to open the court by making it more friendly and welcoming to those unfamiliar with Surrogate’s practices. A probate law instructor, Reddy believes that as more lawyers become familiar with the court, the court will become less of a mystery to litigants. Reddy said his 13 years as counsel to the public administrator, which handles estates for people who die without a will and wills with vague language or instructions, has prepared him for the bench, he argues.

Anderson, who was a clerk in the court for nearly five years under former Surrogate Eve Preminger for nearly five years and has litigated in the court, has a different idea for speeding up the court process. If elected, she would rotate clerks. This, she argues, would allow clerks to master all areas of the court and be better able to assist litigants. Rotating existing staff would eliminate the need to hire, and pay, more clerks, she said. Anderson also said she hopes to encourage would-be litigants to settle out of court, since all court proceedings can become expensive, time-consuming and stressful.

Anderson has cut back her hours with the Brooklyn law firm Seth Rubenstein, P.C. in order to spend time campaigning at greenmarkets, street fairs and on sidewalks. On one recent evening, she hopped, teetered and pirouetted in heels along Eighth Avenue between 22nd and 23rd streets, dodging and following potential voters. Wearing a tailored black suit over a sleeveless knit zebra-print top, she tried to stop pedestrian traffic.

“Hi, I’m running for Surrogate Court and I need your support,” she said. “Hi, I’m running to be a judge. I’ve got a great website.”

But there wasn’t much time for Anderson to talk about campaign specifics. If she wasn’t explaining how to register as a Democrat, she was shouting out summaries of what the court does and what she would do as judge, if elected.

“A large part of this campaign,” she said, “has been education.”