Politics & Government

Kabot Makes Move for Conservative Line

Town supervisor preparing for a primary.

The Southampton Town supervisor race is turning out to be more than just a race between incumbent Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst and GOP candidate Linda Kabot — there's now a race for the Conservative party seat and a possible primary on the horizon. 

Kabot, who previously served as town supervisor and once again has the Southampton Town Republican Committee nomination, said she filed a petition in an effort to get her name on the Conservative party line, just as Howard Heckman III, a registered Conservative from Eastport, got the nod. 

Town Conservative Party Leader James Malone named Heckman the supervisor candidate on July 11. 

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"The Heckman petition contains only 40 signatures of enrolled Conservative voters, and Kabot notes that six of those signers had previously signed her petition which means that they cannot be counted towards meeting the minimum requirement of 36 signatures," Kabot said in a statement. "Ironically, Howard Heckman and his wife, Megan, are two of those six prior signers on the Kabot petition which are now problematic under Election Law for the Heckman petition to survive legal challenge."

Kabot, who previously was elected on not only the Republican but the Conservative party lines, filed objections against the Heckman petition with the board of elections on Monday. She said she intends to file supporting documentation to invalidate the Heckman petition by the July 19 deadline. 

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Over 60 Conservative voters — only 36 were necessary — signed Kabot's petition, filed with the Suffolk County Board of Elections on July 8, she said. 

Since Kabot, a Quogue resident, is not a registered member of the Conservative Party, the County Conservative chairman Edward Walsh would have had to file a Wilson-Pakula, an authorization with the Board of Elections, to uphold the petition. However, the deadline for such filings with the Board of Elections has come and gone. It had to be either delivered in person by 5 p.m. or through the mail with a July 15 postmark.  

Kabot said she does not yet have the chairman's authorization, but that has not stopped her.  

She started a second petition drive called “Opportunity to Ballot,” under Election Law, "a write-in campaign seeking designation by the enrolled Conservative voters on Primary Day, Sept. 10," she said. Sixty-four signatures have already been collected, enough to file by the deadline of July 18.  

“Conservative voters want a candidate on the ballot on the Conservative line. It is disconcerting that the decision for cross-endorsement via Wilson-Pakula authorizations sometimes seems to be not rooted in party principles and credentials but rather the politics of payback, power-plays, ego, and horse-trading,” Kabot said.

This isn't the first time that Kabot has faced a fight over the Conservative line. In 2009, when she ran for re-election and lost, the Conservative party did not back her — or any other candidate for that matter, according to 27East at the time

Throne-Holst, backed by the Democratic, Working Families and Independence parties, won election. 

The two faced off again in 2011, with Kabot as a write-in candidate, earning nearly 3,900 votes. Throne-Holst won re-election.

Throne-Holst did not respond for a request to comment. Malone deferred comments to Walsh, who did not immediately return a call for comment. 


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