Posted on 01/05/2006 10:21:38 PM PST by Coleus
NIAF TO HOST ITALIAN AMERICAN RALLY FOR JUDGE ALITO IN N.J.
(Washington, DC—December 20, 2005) The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) will host a rally in support of the Supreme Court nominee, Judge Samuel Alito, Jr., with the Italian-American community in Jersey City, N.J., on Friday morning, January 6. The bi-partisan rally will be held at the Hyatt Regency Jersey City on the Hudson, 2 Exchange Place, Jersey City, in the Manhattan Grand Ballroom at 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Constitutional law experts and fellow attorneys including: Honorable Donald DiFrancesco, former Acting Governor of New Jersey; Justice Marie L. Garibaldi, former New Jersey Supreme Court Justice and member of the NIAF board of directors; Thomas Gentile, Esq., former clerk for Judge Alito and partner with the firm of Lampf, Lipkind, Prupis & Petigrow; and Honorable Frank J. Guarini, former New Jersey democratic Member of Congress and NIAF chairman emeritus, will discuss Judge Alito’s qualifications and service to New Jersey’s Italian and legal communities. Entertainer Joe Piscopo will also be speaking at the event.
Prominent business executives, Italian American community leaders and leading Italian Americans in government and public policy are also expected to attend the event including: Joseph Alessi, Esq, president of the Center for Italian and Italian American-Culture Inc., and councilman for the Borough of North Cadwell; Hon. Paul DiGaetano, New Jersey assemblyman; and Marty Picillo, Esq. president, Tiro A Segno.
According to NIAF Chairman Dr. A. Kenneth Ciongoli, “Judge Alito, whose father immigrated to the U.S. from Italy, is highly respected in the judicial community for his constitutional knowledge and his impeccable character. Judge Alito should not be judged on his ethnicity as is being done in the media and by opposing groups. We are very proud of Judge Alito.”
NIAF’s extensive efforts in New Jersey included writing Senator Frank Lautenberg and incoming Senator Robert Menendez expressing the Foundation’s and the Italian American community’s support (1.5 million Italian Americans or 18 percent of New Jersey’s population) for Judge Alito. The NIAF also contacted more than 100 Italian American clubs and organizations throughout the State of New Jersey urging grassroots action such as contacts their U.S. Senators to express their support of the Supreme Court nominee.
NIAF is a non-partisan educational foundation. An important part of its mission is to support the nomination and appointment of qualified Italian Americans to federal positions.
The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) is dedicated to promoting the contributions of Italian Americans. The Foundation has a wide-range of programs that provide scholarships and grants, conferences and cultural seminars. Visit our website at www.niaf.org
Because I don't think in hyphenated American, I overlooked this huge voting segment. This endorsement can't hurt.
Now if the Italian Anti-Defamation League (founded by Joe Columbo) endorsed him, then it would be cause for worry.
Amazing that the Supremes will have two Italian-Americans from Trenton on the bench. Also makes for a Catholic majority (five).
Makes you proud to be an eye-talian!
There was a large, vital Italian-American community in Jersey City. My brother-in-law's family came from there. Guess it's still kicking!
Thanks for posting this. Much as I don't usually indulge in tallying up "our" famous people, this does make me proud. But I'm more proud that Alito is who he is, in our great American tradition of government service.
Starting in the 1960s, the Jersey City Italians either moved to places like North Bergen (that's what my grandparents did) or Cliffside Park. If they stayed in Jersey City, they moved to Jersey City Heights which remained heavily Italian until the early 1990s. Lots of Arabs there now.
Or Short Hills.
Me too. I'm part Italian but never vote for people because of such a thing. If I did, I would have to vote for Mario Cuomo and then I would probably kill myself and go straight to hell.
I don't understand people who blindly do such things.
Short Hills, Bronxville, Bernardsville, Basking Ridge, etc. are filled with folks with vowels at the end of their names. Oh how far we have come!
I can't find the statistic but I believe that Lou Lehrman received a bigger share of the Italian-American vote in the 1982 election than Mario Cuomo.
I checked the '84 Almanac of American Politics. Barone stated that Lehrman either carried or "nearly carried" the Italian-American vote in that contest. I think they could tell that their fellow Italian-American Cuomo didn't represent their values, and could best be described by that old Italian phrase, "a schmuck." ;-)
Well I know of one Italian American and one Polish American who voted for Lehrman in 1982. Their son would have loved to have pulled the lever for Lehrman, but he was only six.
It's really too bad that NY has been saddled with such dreadful or mediocre Governors for years. Lew Lehrman was probably too good for NY, and had Jack Kemp not had such a political tin-ear, might very well have been able to win the Governorship from Cuomo in '86. Sad to say, it looked like the damage was pretty much permanent by the time Pataki (whom most don't know is a Hungarian-American) took office. The sad irony is that Giuliani managed to make NYC liveable for the first time since the days Bob Wagner, and helped to recoup all of the people that fled under Lindsay, but the city remains as anti-Republican as ever and pushes the rest of the state to the left. :-(
Yep, and the few Republican areas (Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, Maspeth/Middle Village, Throgs Neck, Country Club/City Island) get more Democratic each year. Staten Island is more of a blue collar swing area than anything else.
I think it's going to be only a matter of time before the city returns to the old Dinkinseque/Lindsayesque days once (or perhaps before) Bloomberg leaves office. NYC is still riding on the fumes of Giuliani's semi-Conservative Law & Order policies, many of which are antithetical to the radical left that run the city, and once the Weiner 'Rats are ensconced, the bottom will fall out. Hopefully Staten Island will be able to secede lest they go under, too...
Me, too. I would have attended had I known sooner. Rats.
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