Special Elections News

by: phillip anderson

Fri Feb 16, 2007 at 17:10:25 PM EST

That Special Feeling

Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi has called a March 27 special election to fill the vacant seat of former Democratic Nassau County Legislator Craig Johnson (11th LD), who, as you will recall, won the 7th SD special election on Feb. 6.

According to Nassau County Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs, it's likely the special election to fill ex-Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli's seat in the 16th AD will be called for the same day.

That would make sense, Jacobs said, since the local and state districts overlap.

An aide to Gov. Eliot Spitzer said he will formally call special elections in both the 16th and 61st ADs (the second is to fill the seat of the late Assemblyman John Lavelle, a Staten Island Democrat) within the next few days. It's likely the 61st AD special would be March 27, as well.

More on the flip...

Town Clerk Michelle Schimel will run for the seat DiNapoli held from 1986 until he was voted into the state comptroller’s office last week by his fellow state legislators, angering Spitzer and touching off an all-war war between the legislative and executive branches that appears to have settled to a simmer (for now).

Town Councilman Wayne Wink will run for the county legislature seat Johnson was elected to fill in 2000, after the death of the incumbent, his mother, Barbara.

The Nassau County GOP has yet to tap candidates for these two races. A local Republican insider tells me the seats won’t go uncontested, but he doesn’t expect a “Craig Johnson-type battle” for either of them, given how long they’ve been in Democratic hands.

Did ya catch that last bit?

Interesting...