The Fighting 29th

All about New York's 29th Congressional District

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.

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.

The Corning Leader reports that the Republican party is going to file a lawsuit next week to try to force the Governor to call a special election. The effort comes from party committees --Tom Reed will not be involved.

The Washington Post is reporting that the FBI and Justice Department are probing the payments made by Massa's campaign last month. These include a $40,000 check to chief of staff Joe Racalto, and a $39,000 car lease payment.

The House Ethics committee has launched an official probe into what other House members and staff did about the allegations against Massa. The committee can't investigate Massa directly because he is no longer a member.

Bob Recotta of the Corning Leader has an interview of Angelo Campini. Here's a sample:

Reed is part of the establishment that has created the country’s current situation, Campini said.

“I find his campaign to be a little out of the can,” Campini said. “I don’t believe for a second he didn’t have this planned all along. Running for mayor (of Corning) was no more than a stepping stone. He’s a lawyer, he’s got plenty of connections. He probably felt it was time for him to take the next step and join the big boys. His responses are straight from the Republican Party talking points.”

Angelo Campini tells WHAM that he has filed the Federal paperwork necessary to be a Republican challenger in the Fall Congressional primary. Campini owns BG&G pizza and lives in West Henrietta.

Campini already has a campaign website. According to that site, he was originally trained as an aerospace engineer, is married and has two children. His position statements on that site are mainly devoted to deficit reduction and energy policy.

(via Rochesterturning)