Tag Archives: Anthony Weiner

Could Elizabeth Holtzman Return in New York’s 9th CD?

New York City congressional districts.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) has set the date for the special election to choose a successor for former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY-9). The vote is set for Sept. 13 and is New York’s second such special congressional election to be held this year, both necessitated to replace congressmen who resigned in disgrace after publicly revealing electronic messages and pictures. This is the same day as primaries for other Empire State offices as well the special election date to fill six vacant state assembly seats.

Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY-7), who represents a district adjacent to NY-9, also serves as the Democratic Party’s chairman for the Borough of Queens. Under New York law, it is the county political party chairmen who choose special election nominees. Because approximately 70 percent of the 9th District is within Queens, Crowley alone has the virtual power to choose the Democratic general election candidate. He is expected to reach a decision in the next day or two.

The congressman reportedly wants “an elder statesman without long-term ambitions” to fill the Weiner seat. He now has the opportunity of ensuring that the new Democratic nominee will allow the 9th CD to be eliminated in redistricting so that Crowley himself can assume much of the Queens territory that was once Weiner’s. New York loses two seats in reapportionment. Such a move will allow him to jettison the Bronx portion of his current district, an area that is becoming heavily Hispanic, and give him a seat wholly within the Borough of Queens. Collapsing the 9th will also mean that Rep. Gary Ackerman’s (D) 5th district, a hybrid seat between Queens and Long Island, will likely survive the redistricting pen, as well.

The person currently being mentioned as having the inside track for the nomination is former Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman (D). The ex-representative reportedly reached out to Crowley shortly after Weiner’s resignation and now appears to be the top Democratic prospect.

During her 1970’s tenure in the House (four terms; 1973-1981), Holtzman represented a portion of the current 9th District. She was succeeded by now-Sen. Chuck Schumer (D), whose own election to the Senate opened the door for Weiner to win the congressional seat. Holtzman ended her career in Congress by losing a 1980 U.S. Senate race to then-Nassau County Board of Supervisors Chairman Alfonse D’Amato. She made a political comeback of sorts at the municipal level, winning election in Kings County (Brooklyn) for district attorney and later as New York City comptroller. Her 1992 Democratic primary bid for the right to square off against D’Amato again ended in another Holtzman loss, this time a rather humiliating fourth place finish. An unsuccessful primary fight to retain her party’s nomination for the city comptroller position the next year effectively ended her career in elective politics. Now at age 70, Holtzman may fit the bill of an “elder statesman” who can win the race in September, and will then fade quietly away when the 9th district is eliminated as a casualty of reapportionment.

Should Holtzman be appointed the nominee, she will begin the special election campaign as the favorite but the seat has some chance of becoming competitive as Republicans plan to wage a significant campaign. More will be known when the GOP nominee is actually chosen.
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Huma for Congress?

Now that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY-9) has officially resigned his position, the subject of who replaces him takes center stage. New York election laws and redistricting, however, makes finding a new 9th district congressman unusually difficult for the Democrats. As we detailed last week, the Empire State allows the political parties to self-determine their special election nominees without a vote of the people. Because the local political party chairmen are powerful, who wins the nomination is determined by just a handful of people. In this particular instance, one person, US Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY-7), who doubles as the Queens County Democratic Party chairman, has the power to choose a new candidate because almost three-quarters of Weiner’s constituents hail from Queens.

But, the congressman has a problem. Because the national reapportionment formula dictates that New York loses two federal districts for the next decade, a pair of seats, probably one in New York City and another in upstate New York, will be collapsed. Crowley would like to see the 9th broken apart because he wants much of its Queens territory for his own 7th district. This would allow his Bronx area, which is becoming increasingly more Hispanic, to go to other seats. Thus, Mr. Crowley wants a person who will serve only the final year of Weiner’s term and not seek re-election in 2012.

Such a person is difficult to find, especially since the Republicans are likely to contest the special election. One name is popping up of an individual who could easily win the seat and might not want to serve more than a year: Weiner’s wife, Huma Abedin. Having her as the congressional nominee seems to play into Crowley’s succession plan, and it’s pretty obvious that such a strategy would work for the party, but would it for Ms. Abedin? We will soon find out.
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The Weiner Scandal Winner: Rep. Joe Crowley

The Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY-9) sexting scandal could be paying long-term benefits for a neighboring Borough of Queens congressman. Because New York is losing two seats in reapportionment, Rep. Weiner’s once personal, now very public, exploits have made his 9th Congressional District (CD) the No. 1 target in New York for collapsing. Of the state’s 29 CD’s, all of which will require more population in the 2011 redistricting process (which is the fundamental reason for the delegation losing two seats), five of the top 10 under-populated districts reside in New York City.

The current scenario favors neighboring Rep. Joe Crowley (D-NY-7), because his Queens/Bronx seat is becoming more heavily minority. This make him potentially vulnerable to a primary challenge from a Hispanic Democrat in the ensuing decade, thus he will want more territory from Queens and less from The Bronx in his new district. Since approximately 70% of Weiner’s district encompasses Queens’ territory, it is easy to combine pieces from both NY-7 and NY-9 into a seat totally within the Borough of Queens.

Of the five CD’s that contain all or part of Queens, Rep. Gregory Meeks’ 6th district is the only seat fully contained within the borough. Adding another Queens-specific CD is at least one of the arguments Mr. Crowley’s personal lobbyist will make in Albany when he attempts to secure a favorable district for the seven-term congressional veteran. Three NY Representatives — Crowley, Eliot Engel (D-NY-17) and Brian Higgins (D-NY-27) — each have hired a personal lobbyist to make specific redistricting arguments to the governing powers in the legislature.

But, what if Weiner resigns? Crowley has that covered, too. In New York, as we have seen in the four other special congressional elections held in the state during the past election cycle, the local county chairmen are the people who choose mid-cycle election nominees. Who is the Borough of Queens Democratic chairman? None other than Rep. Joe Crowley. So, should Weiner resign, it is Crowley who will virtually decide the identity of the next congressman, meaning he will choose someone who won’t run for a full term, making it a virtual certainty that the current 9th district will be one of the disappearing seats.

The other collapsed district will likely come from upstate. The Buffalo/Rochester area seats, numbered 28 (Rep. Louise Slaughter) and 27 (Higgins) need to gain the greatest number of people. Chances are the upstate loss will come from the Republicans.

With a late September primary, New York is typically one of the last states to complete its redistricting process, so the final lines will not be known until well into next year. Since Democrats control the governor’s office and the state Assembly, and Republicans hold the state Senate, the chances of redistricting ending in a legislative deadlock are high — meaning a court-drawn map likely will be the eventual solution.

Regardless of who draws the map, it is relatively clear that one of the lost seats will come from New York City and the other from upstate, with the Long Island districts all moving west, closer to New York City.

While the Weiner scandal is destroying the congressman’s career within the House, its timing is also poor from his personal political perspective. While he may stay in office to finish the current term, Weiner’s long-term congressional career prospects, because of the reapportionment and redistricting scenario described above, are highly unfavorable.
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Weiner’s Real Political Problem

The sexting controversy surrounding Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY-9) rages on in the media, but his ultimate political problem may not be whether to resign. Rather, with New York losing two seats in reapportionment, the scandal could give the legislature all the reason it needs to collapse his 9th district. The other lost seat will certainly come from upstate, probably near the Buffalo area. In terms of redistricting, NY-9 would be relatively easy to cut into pieces. First, it needs an additional 57,401 people just to reach its population quota. Second, because it already contains parts of two boroughs (Kings and Queens) and cuts across New York’s Lower Bay to enjoin other precincts in order to comply with the contiguous requirements, it would be a simple task for map drawers to parcel its distinct parts to other seats.

Two polls of New York City residents were made public yesterday, and it appears that Rep. Weiner has a split constituency regarding his future. According to Survey USA (June 6; 500 New York City residents), 46 percent favor his resignation versus 41 percent who believe he should remain in office. The Marist College poll, conducted on the same day (June 6; 379 NYC registered voters) produces better numbers for the congressman. Fifty-one percent say he should remain in office, while 30 percent believe resignation is his proper course of action.

But when it comes to Weiner’s future mayoral plans — the congressman was a virtual certainty to enter the 2013 city-wide campaign — his numbers dive bomb. Asked if they would vote for Weiner should he run for mayor, just 11 percent of S-USA respondents said they would, versus 43 percent who said, “NO.” An additional 46 percent say it is too early to decide. Marist asked the question a different way, querying the respondents as to whether or not they think he should run for mayor. According to these results, 56 percent say he should not run for Mayor while 25 percent believe he should.
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