While millions of New Yorkers head to the polls on Tuesday to vote for President on Election Day, there are little-known candidates on the ballot in NYC who get less attention.
One of those on the ballot is Stephen Dachtera, a New York-based real estate attorney running as a Republican in a special election for one of the five vacant judicial seats in Queens Civil Court.
Three of the vacancies on the court were created by a recently passed state law that required political parties to select candidates for the general election, rather than have them run in a primary.
Dachtera will be one of three Republican judicial candidates running against five Democrat candidates. The other two Republicans are Mary-Ann Elizabeth Maloney and William Shanahan. The Democrat opponents are Amish Doshi, Melissa B. DeBerry, Glenda Hernandez, Sharifa Nasser-Cuéllar, and Peter Lane, who is running under both party lines.
While judges on the highest court in the state, the New York Court of Appeals, are appointed by the governor, their peers on the NY Civil, Surrogate, and Supreme Courts appear on local voters’ ballots.
The fact that most local judges in New York State are elected by the voters has been widely criticized over the years. County political leaders throughout the state wield enormous influence over who can be appointed to run as a judicial delegate, leading to concerns about the lack of transparency.
A lifelong Republican, Dachtera said he is looking to restore faith and proficiency to the dysfunctional New York court system, which is currently dominated by politically connected Democrats.
A graduate of St. John’s University School of Law, Dachtera has been a practicing attorney in Queens for 19 years. He has provided counsel to both landlords and tenants in New York housing court and has also defended homeowners facing eviction by helping them settle with their bank to avoid foreclosure. He also does real estate contract work by facilitating lease agreement signings, and he handles slip-and-fall cases involving tenants.
"I want to make sure that all litigants are heard and to issue quicker decisions so that people, so their cases can be settled more quickly and efficiently," Dachtera told PJ Media.
"I've worked in the court system. I was a court attorney in front of several judges in housing court for almost two years. I know how the system works after being in practice for 19 years," said Dachtera, when asked why voters should vote for him.
"I've done a lot of civil litigation. I've done a number of trials. I'm not a politician, and you know, I feel like I have a lot of varied experience in pro bono work and then being empathetic towards people," he added.
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When I asked Dachtera what issues were facing the Queens judicial system right now, he said that the biggest problem is the major backlog in the courts. He explained that the backlog in the court system is due to the massive number of cases waiting to be heard.
He said that the overworked judges only have a limited number of cases that they can hear at time, while some of them don't even bother to move the cases along — an attitude that he says needs to change.
The Queens-based attorney said that some litigants wait years for their cases to be resolved, which he finds to be unjust and disgraceful.
Dachtera also happens to be a stand-up comedian, a roller hockey player, and a part-time actor with a role in an upcoming film starring Timothée Chalamet.
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