The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

The Corning Leader's story on the special election includes some quotes from Democratic chairs who believe that the Governor can't schedule the special after July 1. Angelo Campini, the Republican challenger, also threatens a lawsuit.

Now the Elections Board is wondering if Paterson's election is legal.

David Paterson's decision to call a special election has everyone confused. Jimmy Vielkind at the Times-Union has a good rundown of the possible election scenarios, and the Corning Leader has reaction from Southern Tier politicians.

Nobody knows if there will be two lines for Congress in November's election, but it sounds like that might happen. Then, the winner of one line would serve for a couple of months, and the winner of the other would serve for the next term.

What a mess.

Update: Sean Carroll has a good rundown of some questions and answers.

The Reed campaign just issued a press release decrying Governor Paterson's decision to call a special election on November 2, which is the general election day, so I assume that means that we won't have a special election in the 29th.

Reader Up in Prattsburgh points out that Tom Reed is fine with Arizona's immigration law. I don't know why Republican candidates think they need to have a hard-line immigration position. It's clear that the only constituents who are seriously interested in immigration, farmers, want more lenient guest worker programs, and have little interest in what Arizona is doing, unless it impacts their ability to hire migrant workers.

In other news, Sean Carroll talks to the former head of the Monroe County Bar Association, who says that the lawsuit attempting to force a special election will probably be thrown out.

Sean Carroll reports that the lawsuit aiming to force Governor Paterson to call a special election has been filed.

Sean Carroll of 13-WHAM has posted the full video of his interview with Matt Zeller.

Reader Joe sends this short City Newspaper interview of Matt Zeller. Here's Zeller's take on the special:

"It's not my call," he says. "It's a difficult decision."

Reader Elmer sends today's Corning Leader interview which is meatier, and has a pretty thorough discussion of Zeller's position on healthcare reform.

Note that yesterday's D&C interview just quoted Zeller as saying that a question about how he would vote on HCR wasn't fair, yet he seems willing to talk about it at length. Some of these newspaper stories (not the Leader's) are short and heavily-edited, so it's hard to judge Zeller from a couple really short quotes.

Matt Zeller has been making the rounds of media outlets in the 29th in preparation for his official announcement tomorrow. Here's the D&C story covering his visit to the Rochester paper.

We Ask America, a robo-polling firm, polled the 29th last week and found that 60% of the residents want a special election. Reed leads Zeller 41%-24%, with 35% undecided.

(via Rochesterturning)