By Lisa W. Foderaro
Special
elections in New York on Tuesday will present voters with nearly a
dozen state legislative races from Buffalo to Long Island, and could
prove decisive in the Democrats’ yearslong quest to capture all levers
of state government.
The
vacancies in the State Senate and Assembly are the result of incumbents
decamping for other positions. State election officials say Tuesday
will see a historic number of contests. “I can’t think of any time that
we’ve had this many special elections on a single day,” said John
Conklin, a spokesman for the Board of Elections.
The
most critical races to the future of Democrats and Republicans are the
two for State Senate, one in Westchester County and the other in the
Bronx. Democrats have long enjoyed a comfortable margin in the 150-seat
Assembly, but control of the Senate has mostly eluded them, because of a
power-sharing arrangement between Republicans and eight renegade
Democrats.
Despite
a technical majority in the Senate, Democrats have taken a back seat to
Republicans in the upper chamber, watching as the collaboration between
Republicans and the so-called Independent Democratic Conference stymied
legislation on issues like childhood sexual abuse and voting rights.
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Source: The New York Times (via Empire Report New York)
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