Intrigue and minor-party lines

Here comes an intrigue-filled twist on New York's unusual practice of allowing different political parties to cross-endorse each other's candidates.

On Tuesday the state's dominant Democratic Party apparently created its own spinoff -- the Women's Equality Party -- by drawing the 50,000 votes needed to achieve automatic ballot status for four years.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo got 50,876 votes on this homemade WEP line, according to the count so far. Insiders weren't saying Wednesday what he and other statewide party figures plan to do next. But the controlling Democrats may have the option of installing a governing structure replete with state and local committees.

Could this rival party seek to upstage the Working Families Party, and maybe others, in future elections where major-party candidates seek second ballot lines?

Working Families leaders cut a deal last spring to endorse Cuomo in Tuesday's race. The WFP retained ballot status with a so-far-tallied 120,028 gubernatorial votes, behind the Conservatives and Greens. That's also ahead of Cuomo's 72,859 votes thus far for the Independence Party line.

But after the polls closed, WFP director Bill Lipton issued a searing statement saying Cuomo had "squandered millions on a fake party, and left millions more in his campaign account," with Democratic legislative candidacies left to "wither on the vine."

Applying his trademark verbal balm, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio replied: "I would not share that characterization at all. I worked very closely with . . . [Cuomo] throughout this year and I thought there was a lot of unity within the coalition, of which he was obviously a key part."

Despite those words, de Blasio remains as close to Working Families as Cuomo is alienated from it. And Christine Quinn, de Blasio's former mayoral rival -- who took it on the chin in 2013 from WFP activists -- became a leading voice this season for Cuomo's Women's Equality Party.

Democratic divisions are showing.

Typically a new party forms as a breakaway group. Labor unionists with Democratic ties began backing the Working Families Party in the 1990s. The Conservatives famously split off from the state's more liberal Republican Party in the 1960s.

But a top-down creation like Women's Equality has precedent.

In 1994, GOP Gov. George Pataki drew votes from an ad hoc Tax Cut Now party, which also won automatic ballot status and was renamed the Freedom Party. But in 1997 a court ruled it wasn't a functioning party, and it faded away.

And, as counts and canvassing continue, the Stop Common Core party -- created for Cuomo's defeated Republican challenger Rob Astorino -- seems to be on the cusp of also clearing the 50,000-vote hurdle with 49,545. As with the Women's Equality Party, its future -- and potential political value -- remains to be seen.

By Dan Janison

dan.janison@newsday.comDanJanison

Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.