It has been a week since Election Day and already, the next race has begun.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz didn’t even have time to return from his post-election vacation before another politician emerged to steal the spotlight from him.
Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, finally announced his decision to resign from Congress. For months, the decision was one of the worst-kept secrets in town. The News and other media outlets reported that Higgins is leaving to become president of Shea’s Performing Arts Center, though Higgins declined to confirm that detail. Gov. Kathy Hochul congratulated him about the Shea’s gig on social media, which made the congressman’s silence about it even more strange.
But it all makes sense now. I asked Higgins about this in September and he denied that he was going anywhere, saying that he planned to run for re-election in 2024. But I did not really believe that answer. I figured he was a politician saying what he needed to say at the moment, while something else was going on behind the scenes.
Around that time, Higgins’ longtime chief of staff and top aide Chuck Eaton was named executive director of the Erie County Water Authority, a plum political patronage post. Some took Eaton’s hiring as a sign that Higgins was ready to “get out” after 18 years in Washington – and this weekend, they were proven right.
Tuesday morning, I broke the news that State Sen. Tim Kennedy, also a Democrat from South Buffalo, was stepping up to succeed Higgins. It would be a natural step for Kennedy, who came up through Higgins’ political organization and whose career has mirrored that of his mentor.
But Kennedy is not the only person who might come under consideration by the Democratic Party. Some other names include Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown, Poloncarz, Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes, as well as underdog candidates like Nate McMurray, who has run for Congress before; Assembly Member…
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