52.0°,
Light Rain Voice of the people –– Morris Kramer
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One day in the mid-1960s, Kramer stopped off at the Lawrence District’s central offices to register to vote in a Board of Education election. He said he was stunned when his application was denied because he owned no property and had no children in the schools. According to the state, someone like Kramer would –– should –– have had no interest in voting in a school election.
Kramer was incensed. His family made its home in the Bronx in the 1930s and ’40s, and came to Long Beach and Atlantic Beach in the summers. The Kramers moved to Atlantic Beach, which falls in the Lawrence District, shortly after Morris graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in accounting. At the time, Atlantic Beach was a desolate spit of sand jutting into the ocean, with a patchwork of modest homes, a bar where New York City mafia dons liked to lay low and a post office.
Kramer, who noted that he always obeyed the law and paid his income taxes, said he loved his community and wanted only to exercise his right to vote. But, he said, he felt as though he was less of a citizen because he was barred from casting a ballot in his local school election. And, he said, he was not alone.
So he did what any self-respecting American with enough money might do in his situation: He sued, hiring attorney Murray Miller, of Merrick, to handle the case.
Kramer spent a small fortune fighting not only the school district but the state, which intervened in the case and represented Lawrence. His class-action lawsuit was struck down in U.S. District Court, and he lost the case on appeal.
He was devastated. He wondered whether he had the financial wherewithal to bring the case to the Supreme Court, if the high court were to accept his appeal –– on average, the court hears less than 1 percent of the thousands of cases that come before it each year.
At that point, he recalled, “I was scratching for money wherever I could,” while Miller was putting in long hours on the case pro bono. Miller, who later died of a brain hemorrhage while still in his early 40s, “just really believed in it,” Kramer said.
Kramer was incensed. His family made its home in the Bronx in the 1930s and ’40s, and came to Long Beach and Atlantic Beach in the summers. The Kramers moved to Atlantic Beach, which falls in the Lawrence District, shortly after Morris graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in accounting. At the time, Atlantic Beach was a desolate spit of sand jutting into the ocean, with a patchwork of modest homes, a bar where New York City mafia dons liked to lay low and a post office.
Kramer, who noted that he always obeyed the law and paid his income taxes, said he loved his community and wanted only to exercise his right to vote. But, he said, he felt as though he was less of a citizen because he was barred from casting a ballot in his local school election. And, he said, he was not alone.
So he did what any self-respecting American with enough money might do in his situation: He sued, hiring attorney Murray Miller, of Merrick, to handle the case.
Kramer spent a small fortune fighting not only the school district but the state, which intervened in the case and represented Lawrence. His class-action lawsuit was struck down in U.S. District Court, and he lost the case on appeal.
He was devastated. He wondered whether he had the financial wherewithal to bring the case to the Supreme Court, if the high court were to accept his appeal –– on average, the court hears less than 1 percent of the thousands of cases that come before it each year.
At that point, he recalled, “I was scratching for money wherever I could,” while Miller was putting in long hours on the case pro bono. Miller, who later died of a brain hemorrhage while still in his early 40s, “just really believed in it,” Kramer said.
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