Liberal Party of New York - 1980 Onward

1980 Onward

The Liberal Party declined in influence following the 1980 election. Its 1998 candidate for governor, Lieutenant Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross, received less than two percent of the vote. The party endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton's successful campaign for the United States Senate in 2000, but this did not revive its fortunes. After a very poor showing in the 2002 gubernatorial election when former Clinton administration Cabinet member Andrew Cuomo abandoned his campaign before the election, the party lost its automatic place on the ballot and ceased operations at its state offices.

Another hurdle to the efforts to reestablish the Liberal Party is the formation in mid-1998 of the Working Families Party, a party that enjoys, as the American Labor and Liberal parties did in their prime, strong labor union support.

The Liberal Party also suffered allegations of corruption and of abandoning its liberal roots in favor of a system of patronage and nepotism - Harding relatives were given appointments in the Giuliani administration, and it was argued that it was a quid pro quo deal, since Giuliani is not generally considered a "liberal" by New York City standards. In 1999, The New York Observer called it an "ideologically bereft institution more interested in patronage than in policy." In 2009, Harding pleaded guilty to having accepted more than $800,000 in exchange for doing political favors for Alan G. Hevesi, a New York politician who was a frequent Liberal Party endorsee.

The Working Families Party became a new place for liberal or center-left voters to place their votes, and it did not help that the Green Party, another left-wing organization, also expanded greatly at the same time. After the surge in Working Families Party voting, the Liberal Party failed to qualify for automatic ballot status, which robbed it of its inherent political power. The centrist campaigns of Tom Golisano boosted the Independence Party of New York into an automatic ballot line, due in large part to heavy campaigning against Republican George Pataki, which helped siphon away potential Liberal Party votes. As of 2010, the Working Families and Independence parties have automatic ballot access; the Liberal Party does not. It has not fielded a candidate for governor in 2006 or 2010, making it impossible for the party to gain automatic ballot access until at least the 2014 election. (Automatic ballot access is achieved by gaining at least 50,000 votes for a gubernatorial candidate on the party line.)

In 2005, the New York Daily News reported that incumbent New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a liberal Republican who favors abortion rights and same-sex marriage, was seeking to revive the Liberal Party – and thereby run on a "Republican/Liberal" ticket – in an effort to win over Democratic voters in the overwhelmingly Democratic city. Bloomberg was re-elected in 2005. However, nothing came of these rumors. In 2006 for the first time since the early 1940s, there was no Liberal candidate for Governor. Edward Culvert was the party's candidate for governor in 2010, but the party lacked the resources to get him onto the ballot.

As of 2007, the Liberal Party's most recent chairman was former New York City Parks Commissioner Henry Stern. Its most recent vice-chairman was Jack Olchin. Its executive director is Martin Oesterreich. Prior to Stern taking over as chairman in 2004, the Liberal Party's longtime leader was Raymond Harding (born Branko Hochwald; January 31, 1935 – August 9, 2012).

The Liberal Party cross-endorsed Republican candidate Bob Turner in the New York's 9th congressional district special election, 2011, marking one of the rare times the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party have agreed on a candidate other than an unopposed one.

Raymond Harding died August 9, 2012 in the Bronx of cancer, aged 77.