In January 1974, Republican Samuel Rabin and Democrat Harold A. Stevens, the Presiding Justices of the Appellate Division's First and Second Departments, were appointed by Governor Malcolm Wilson to fill the vacancies temporarily.
[1] The Democratic State Committee met from June 13 to 15 at Niagara Falls, New York, and designated Howard J. Samuels for governor, but Congressman Hugh L. Carey polled enough votes to force a primary election.
[2] They also designated Mario M. Cuomo for lieutenant governor;[3] the incumbent Arthur Levitt for Comptroller; Robert R. Meehan for attorney general; Judge Harold A. Stevens and Appellate Justice Lawrence H. Cooke for the Court of Appeals; and Mayor of Syracuse Lee Alexander for the U.S.
In August he was strongly endorsed by former New York City mayor Robert F. Wagner who, drawing a pointed comparison to Samuels, called Carey "free of boss ties and obligations".
[8] On June 28, Rabin declined to run because he was already 69, just one year short of the constitutional age limit,[9] and on July 22, Appellate Justice Louis M. Greenblott, of Binghamton, was designated instead.
[11] They also designated Republican Ralph G. Caso for lieutenant governor; Bradley J. Hurd (born c. 1902), "lumber dealer," of Buffalo, for Comptroller; Edward F. Campbell (born c. 1920), of Huntington, for attorney general; the incumbent Democrat Harold A. Stevens, and Manhattan lawyer Henry S. Middendorf, Jr., for the Court of Appeals; and Barbara A. Keating, of Larchmont, for the U.S.
The Socialist Labor Party nominated John Emanuel for governor; and Robert E. Massi (born c. 1944), lawyer, of Brooklyn, for the U.S. Senate.
After the election of Jacob D. Fuchsberg, who had entered the Democratic primary by petition, gathering signatures, the political and legal establishment thought that the filling of vacancies on the State's highest court could not be entrusted to the electorate anymore.
Traditionally, the nominees had been selected by the party leaders and ratified by the state conventions from among the most experienced and respected judges of lower courts, with occasional intrusions of well-respected politicians who were lawyers, like Kenneth Keating.
The impression arose that any shyster or ambulance chaser could get on the Court of Appeals if he was an enrolled party member and gathered signatures to get into the primary by petition and then spent a lot of money to make his name known to the voters.