ALBANY - A very strange thing happened on the way to New York's general election - at least five incumbent state legislators lost their major party primary elections and, as a result, very possibly their seats in the Senate or Assembly.
As government watchdog groups have long complained, election to a seat in the New York state Legislature is akin to a lifetime employment contract, if one wants it.
A report from the New York Public Interest Research Group issued after the 2004 legislative elections showed that in the previous 24 years, just 34 incumbent state legislators had lost general elections in more than 2,500 contests.
Primaries are, of course, a different animal than general elections, with a more limited voter base and often extremely small voter turnouts. That means the results can be skewed by the
most local of issues and battles that have little to do with grand questions facing the state or the nation.
For instance, unofficial results showed veteran state Sen. Ada Smith narrowly losing her Sept. 12 Democratic primary to Shirley Huntley. Smith's lengthy tenure - she's been in the Senate since 1989 - has been marked by repeated run-ins with members of her staff and law enforcement officials. Just this summer, Smith was found guilty of harassing one of her former staff members, who had said the senator threw coffee at her.
Then there were the cases of state Sen. Marc Coppola, a Buffalo-area Democrat, and state Assemblywoman Sylvia Friedman, a Manhattan Democrat. They both barely knew what it was like to be a state legislator, having won special elections only in February.
Coppola was on the losing end of a battle over political power between newly elected Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, whose state Senate seat Coppola had taken, and Erie County's Democratic Party chairman, Len Lenihan. Lenihan backed Coppola while Brown backed Buffalo City Council Member Antoine Thompson in the primary.
Meanwhile, two Class of 1994 members of the state Assembly's Republican minority, Willis Stephens Jr. of Westchester County and Patrick Manning of Dutchess County, lost GOP primaries. Stephens is at least still in the hunt as he remains on the November ballot as the candidate of the Conservative and Independence parties. Manning, who abandoned a run for the GOP nomination for governor earlier this year, had no such fallback position.
NYPRG's Blair Horner said the losses for incumbent state lawmakers are “an indication that voters are restless.”
“People in this state need change, and they finally demanded change,” Greg Ball, who beat Stephens in the GOP primary, told The Journal News newspaper after his victory.
While local issues may well have been the dominant factor in most of the primaries, there was another possible problem for incumbents.
On the Democratic side of the primary ballot were state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi in their battle for the party's nomination for governor, a contest easily won by Spitzer.
From Spitzer and Suozzi, voters generally heard a similar message - state government was a mess and they were the best choice to fix it. That is also a message that has been trumpeted from one end of the state to the other by Republican candidate for governor John Faso and by the front-runner in the race to replace Spitzer as attorney general, Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
“All of the statewide candidates are running as reformers,” Horner said.
And, leading up to the primary, Spitzer and Cuomo were bombarding New Yorkers with television advertising stressing their desire to bring change to state government.
“On Day One, everything changes,” was a favorite Spitzer ad tag line.
“The polling must be telling them the public is really unhappy,” Horner said. “That emboldens challengers.”
And, if the primaries are any indication, that could cost more incumbents their seats in the state Legislature come November.
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Marc Humbert has covered New York state politics for The Associated Press for more than 25 years. He can be reached via e-mail at: mhumbert(at)ap.org.
AP-ES-09-23-06 1109EDT
A report from the New York Public Interest Research Group issued after the 2004 legislative elections showed that in the previous 24 years, just 34 incumbent state legislators had lost general elections in more than 2,500 contests.
Primaries are, of course, a different animal than general elections, with a more limited voter base and often extremely small voter turnouts. That means the results can be skewed by the
most local of issues and battles that have little to do with grand questions facing the state or the nation.
For instance, unofficial results showed veteran state Sen. Ada Smith narrowly losing her Sept. 12 Democratic primary to Shirley Huntley. Smith's lengthy tenure - she's been in the Senate since 1989 - has been marked by repeated run-ins with members of her staff and law enforcement officials. Just this summer, Smith was found guilty of harassing one of her former staff members, who had said the senator threw coffee at her.
Then there were the cases of state Sen. Marc Coppola, a Buffalo-area Democrat, and state Assemblywoman Sylvia Friedman, a Manhattan Democrat. They both barely knew what it was like to be a state legislator, having won special elections only in February.
Coppola was on the losing end of a battle over political power between newly elected Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, whose state Senate seat Coppola had taken, and Erie County's Democratic Party chairman, Len Lenihan. Lenihan backed Coppola while Brown backed Buffalo City Council Member Antoine Thompson in the primary.
Meanwhile, two Class of 1994 members of the state Assembly's Republican minority, Willis Stephens Jr. of Westchester County and Patrick Manning of Dutchess County, lost GOP primaries. Stephens is at least still in the hunt as he remains on the November ballot as the candidate of the Conservative and Independence parties. Manning, who abandoned a run for the GOP nomination for governor earlier this year, had no such fallback position.
NYPRG's Blair Horner said the losses for incumbent state lawmakers are “an indication that voters are restless.”
“People in this state need change, and they finally demanded change,” Greg Ball, who beat Stephens in the GOP primary, told The Journal News newspaper after his victory.
While local issues may well have been the dominant factor in most of the primaries, there was another possible problem for incumbents.
On the Democratic side of the primary ballot were state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi in their battle for the party's nomination for governor, a contest easily won by Spitzer.
From Spitzer and Suozzi, voters generally heard a similar message - state government was a mess and they were the best choice to fix it. That is also a message that has been trumpeted from one end of the state to the other by Republican candidate for governor John Faso and by the front-runner in the race to replace Spitzer as attorney general, Democrat Andrew Cuomo.
“All of the statewide candidates are running as reformers,” Horner said.
And, leading up to the primary, Spitzer and Cuomo were bombarding New Yorkers with television advertising stressing their desire to bring change to state government.
“On Day One, everything changes,” was a favorite Spitzer ad tag line.
“The polling must be telling them the public is really unhappy,” Horner said. “That emboldens challengers.”
And, if the primaries are any indication, that could cost more incumbents their seats in the state Legislature come November.
---
Marc Humbert has covered New York state politics for The Associated Press for more than 25 years. He can be reached via e-mail at: mhumbert(at)ap.org.
AP-ES-09-23-06 1109EDT
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