...managed to pass a legal challenge. ( Assuming they were not reinstated.)

Aren't US citizens entitled to be represented by the people they elect?

here's a quick link to some information:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/21/when-the-assembly-expelled-socialists-for-disloyalty/

and a link to a primary source in Google books (which may or may not open - if not, google "new york expels state socialists" in Google Books.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ig4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA302&lpg=PA302&dq=new+york+expels+state+socialists&source=bl&ots=VST9ihf3BK&sig=lI3giQJp3aMWLcteaFwm2lFURGA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBGoVChMIoezCmbnJxwIVkDaICh3odAHN#v=onepage&q=new%20york%20expels%20state%20socialists&f=false

>>>>During debate two weeks later in the Senate, Senator George F. Thompson, Republican of Niagara, accused one Mark Daly, a lobbyist for upstate manufacturers, of procuring liquor for the debating Assembly members. He said some of them got so drunk during the debate that they had to be carried out.

“A great deal of liquor was on hand and was used for the purpose of getting votes over on the other side the night they threw the Socialists out,” Mr. Thompson charged. “Some even got so drunk that they had to be carried out of the Assembly chamber.”>>>>

Albany was a an moral and ethical mess in those days too, it would appear. Just that the nature and form of the vice seems to have evolved over time.

Good way to distract the NYS public from what was unquestionably the greater evil ( and THREAT) .

Right . Worry about the Socialists in your midst; not about the the political sleazebags ... who appear to have been much more numerous. And *powerful*.

Thanks for the links.

When I start going off about Eric Holder declaring Freedom Road a terrorist organization (while the NRA continues on - business as usual) it is things like the Palmer Raids that are informing my view. These were under a democratic president (Wilson) in the early decades of the 1900s.