Today in Western New York, the news has been leaking out that Andrew Cuomo is going to set the special election to replace shitbag Chris Collins on April 28, the same day as the Democratic primary. This is consistent with Cuomo’s long-standing tradition of holding special elections concurrent with the next scheduled election which happens to be April 28.
Cue the crying moaning and caterwauling by Republicans. They’ve filed a frivolous lawsuit for publicity (dutifully provided by Bob McCarthy at the Buffalo News) challenging Cuomo’s right to wait to call the election:
The [State Republican] chairman argued that 27th District voters have been disenfranchised and unrepresented in Congress ever since Collins’ resignation. GOP attorney Joseph T. Burns of Buffalo argued Monday that the Collins seat has been vacant for more than 100 days and asked the court to order Cuomo to schedule an earlier election.
The reason that residents of NY-27 are denied Congressional representation for months is simple: instead of dropping out of the race after being indicted, Collins chose to lie and say he was innocent. Then, he faffed around for months until he pled guilty and resigned on September 30, too late to add a special election to the November county and municipal elections.
What’s really interesting is that our local independent “liberal” paper fell for the same thing – a normally level-headed reporter who came from one of the rural NY-27 counties thinks waiting a couple of months will cause so much resentment in voters that, even if Democrat Nate MacMurray wins the special, he’ll almost certainly lose the general.
We all know the same Republicans who want a stand alone special election would be yelling about the million dollar expense of that election if Cuomo called it at another time. They’re just going to bitch and moan so they’ll all hope we forget that they were Collins’ enablers. Well, I’m not forgetting, and my guess is that this whole nontroversy will blow over soon enough.
Baud
Contrarianism is a disease.
Nicole
(Through gritted teeth) Good… for…Cuomo.
(deep breath)
Okay, that wasn’t so hard. Good for Cuomo. The right call.
Martin
California generally uses the same standard. Running an election is expensive, so you put as many things on the ballot that you can.
But waiting 100 days to decide? Yeah, that’s shitty.
That said, CA-50 will remain vacant until the November election. I think that’s also shitty.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Nicole: I’ll take “Words that Stick in Your Craw” for $500, Alex.
HRH mistermix, Lord Bombay Sapphire, Duke of Schweppes
@Martin:
Yeah, unfortunately Collins’ resignation was pretty much at the worst possible moment unless you want to have a stand-alone special. A month earlier and that seat would have been filled before Christmas.
hitchhiker
Republicans shouldn’t have elected a criminal if they were so eager to have representation. They can sit right down.
West of the Rockies
Republicans are addicted to victimhood. Can’t get enough of that sweet, sticky martyrdom.
TS (the original)
Via a link on an earlier thread – nice to read this from prosecutors – trump should take note
They said that “in committing insider trading and later lying to federal agents to cover it up, and in continuing to actively serve in the House of Representatives during that time period, Collins came to embody the cynical idea that those in power who make the laws are not required to follow them.
Brachiator
This pretty much says it all. If Cuomo is being consistent, nobody has anything to complain about.
Except maybe that he is not doing enough to help a Democrat, which would be OK with me.
Just kidding.
Kinda.
hells littlest angel
Those poor people of the 27th — disenfranchised just because they voted for a sleazebag crook.
Don K
@Martin:
It happened when I was a teenager in New Jersey. The congresscritter from my district (NJ-6 then) was elected governor in 1969. The special election to fill the seat was held on the day of the next general election (November 1970), so the seat was vacant for right around ten months. Sucks, but whatcha gonna do?
Betty Cracker
Breaking from Le Post:
He’s going to shit a cat.
Martin
@hitchhiker: I tend to agree with Rick Hasan’s view that elections exist to serve the voters. Democrats in CA-50 have no representation, and that’s not good.
But we do have an election coming up in 2 months, so hold it then.
Keith P.
Didn’t the GOP do this very thing in the last couple of years? Just call it the XXXX Precedent”
Martin
@Betty Cracker: He won’t care.
pamelabrown53
@West of the Rockies:
YES! “Republicans are addicted to victimhood”. Plus they just love to give advice on “fairness” if they’re not the ones adhering to the principle. I just read a blurb at NY Intelligencer where House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, called on Joe Biden to suspend his campaign while his senate-running for president- colleagues participate in the senate impeachment trial…because “fairness” is McCarthy’s seminal principle. s/.
Hoodie
@Baud: Contrarianism is a symptom. The disease is that many in the press think they occupy a special status called “journalist,” and use artifices like contrarianism and bothsiderism to define that status. I know a guy that works for a local paper; super guy, a friend, generally very liberal, but even he suffers from a milder form of this disease. One time I bitched to him about his employer distributing a phony anti-muslim “documentary” DVD put out by some group of right wing nutjobs along with the Sunday paper. The paper did it for the money, of course, and I get they have fallen on hard times, but really, are you going to associate the paper with a bunch of obvious, racist lies? Just for a few bucks that won’t reverse the inevitable decline of the paper? His response was something along the line of “free market of ideas.”
Barbara
Well, the answer to this caterwauling is that the voters in the District knew all about Collins’ insider trading when they reelected him. Surely the fact that he might plead guilty and leave Congress is a risk that they knowingly assumed, or at least the majority of them did. I hope Cuomo sticks to his guns.
Baud
@Martin:
That’s an argument for limiting the governor’s discretion, not for faulting him for exercising his discretion in a way he is allowed to by law and which is consistent with how he has always done it.
Kent
@Betty Cracker: They might have enough votes to pass it. But they most certainly won’t have enough votes to override a veto which Trump will happily do. He’s never shied away from conflict. He won’t on this issue either.
Barbara
@Kent: It goes without saying. That’s not the point.
patrick II
@Martin:
He’ll care about the blow to his pride. The law (is it subject to veto?) won’t make a difference to him if he decides to go. But I’m trying to decide if it makes him more likely to go to show who’s boss or less likely because people around him may not be so anxious to break the law. Oh, that’s right, those people have all left.
Neldob
Love the headline. Also, the independent ‘liberal ” paper is now the right wing mouthpiece, duped into it I suppose, but still. The liberal press has been reduced to Truthdig, the Nation and Hightower’s Lowdown.
Baud
@Neldob:
The Nation did the whole Seth Rich conspiracy things, no? If so, no thanks.
Neldob
@Keith P.: How long was Obama’s Merrick Garland supreme court seat held vacant?
Neldob
@Baud: I don’t know, don’t read it regularly. Isn’t it considered a Leftist icon?
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: That’s my take too — the only thing Trump really cares about is what other people think of him because he has no sense of self; he’s a howling void whose only source of self-esteem is the adulation of others or fear he inspires. That’s why he gets off on the power of the presidency so much. To be publicly told that his power is limited will be a huge blow to his fragile ego. No telling how he might react.
West of the Rockies
@pamelabrown53:
Oh, fer cryin’ out loud… That’s rich. Funny how Republicans also demand “respect for the office” when Clump is there, but when it was Obama, shouting out, “You lie!” was just freedom (free-dumb) of speech.
MJS
@Kent: But it will make a good political ad. “A bipartisan vote of the Senate confirmed what we all know – Trump can’t be trusted with power.”
OzarkHillbilly
If Republicans really want an early special election, how’s about they pay for it? I’m sure trump would be more than willing to part with some of those mega campaign bucks he’s been raking in so that his poor NY constituents will be properly represented in Congress.
dmsilev
If that delay (or similar for Duncan Hunter here in California; maybe the GOP should stop doing crimes?) gets the Republicans all sad, maybe they should offer to pay all of the expenses associated with holding an out-of-band election.
dmsilev
@OzarkHillbilly: Hah. Looks like we’re on the same wavelength.
OzarkHillbilly
@dmsilev: I’d say, “great minds think alike.” but in this case there’s just no way to spin it that looks good for you.
Barbara
@hells littlest angel: And the party nominated him. Seriously, I have difficulty comprehending the level of entitlement someone must feel to be complaining about a totally foreseeable development that they had control over from the get go and could have totally avoided, and it’s only 90 days of “non-representation.” Yes, I know, what it’s really about is having the election on a day when Democrats but not Republicans are likely more jazzed to show up, but, you should think about these tings BEFOREHAND you whining dipshits.
Searcher
This was utterly foreseeable, for the Republicans.
If the Republicans wanted to draw more Republican voters to the polls in April, they always had the option of participating in the NY Presidential Primary.
pamelabrown53
@OzarkHillbilly:
Exactly! Maybe reps. who resign should, by law, relinquish their “war chests” to offset the considerable costs of special elections.
MomSense
@Neldob:
Except Vanden Heuvel’s husband is a Russia apologist. She finally stepped down last spring.
Kent
Just curious. Are you guys getting Elizabeth Warren ads here on BJ? Or are they just being fed to me via some ad algorithm?
Yutsano
@MomSense: She’s doing fine. She snagged an opinion column in the Washington Post.
germy
@Kent: I’m getting them, too.
It’s a nice change from the right wing ads.
pamelabrown53
@Kent:
The only ad I’m seeing is one about earwax that’s positioned at the very bottom.
The browser I use is Firefox and I have no idea if that’s relevant info.
germy
@pamelabrown53: I’m seeing the earwax ad everywhere.
“Earwax causes memory loss.”
surfk9
@Martin: Hunter waited to resign until after it was too late to schedule for the March 3 primary. He did it to force a special election which are low turnout affairs that favor Republicans. Newsom is just saying F-U right back to the thugs.
pamelabrown53
@germy:
Too funny! Maybe I should give the earwax people a click?
Disgusting earwax and hair growth are just 2 indignities of aging!
Kent
@pamelabrown53: I’m using Chrome on a PC. But lately I’m getting big Warren splash ads when I open BJ. I have popup blockers enabled but not ad blockers.
Jay C
@Neldob:
The Merrick Garland disgrace isn’t a relevant comparison (outside of “Republicans suck”, which is always a relevant comparison!) – the rules for replacing Representatives vary from state to state. And unlike Senators, who can be replaced virtually immediately, the rules and schedules for the “replacement” elections/primaries for the House in most states do NOT value timeliness. There are currently five vacancies in the HoR (one death, four resignations), and none of them are likely to be filled before April, at the earliest.
Gelfling 545
@Martin: Voters could have spared themselves this by not nominating or electing someone already under indictment. Surely they could have anticipated this. The likelihood of him being exonerated infinitesimal from the start.
Martin
@Baud: Except that it’s not consistent. I’m also reminded of MA where every time they have a vacancy the legislature either grants or revokes the governors ability to fill the vacancy depending on the particulars.
Just have a policy – if there’s an election more than x days but less than y days of the vacancy, then the special election happens during that election. If not, you call a special election for z days after the vacancy. Otherwise, this is just a weird variation on voter suppression.
Martin
@Gelfling 545: Democrats in CA-50 didn’t nominate or elect him. They shouldn’t be punished.
Roger Moore
@Hoodie:
They’re all for a free market of ideas when they serve as the marketplace and can extract rents for it. Not so much when somebody else is taking away their advertising revenues.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
The other question is whether they can force a vote, or whether McTurtle will just bury it the same way he’s buried anything coming from the House of Representatives he doesn’t personally approve of.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
The other thing that could have changed their lack of representation is if the crook himself had chosen a better time to resign. If he cared about ensuring his district was well represented, he should have resigned in a timely manner instead of holding on for one more paycheck.
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Getting another wingnut to represent them would also be a punishment, so maybe holding off the election is good for them.