BUFFALO, N.Y. (WBEN) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday set an April 28 special election to fill the congressional seat left vacant by the resignation of Republican Chris Collins, who was sentenced last month to more than two years in prison for insider trading.
The date coincides with the state’s presidential primary. Voters also will fill four vacant seats in the state Legislature.
State Republican Chairman Nicholas Langworthy had sued the Democratic governor and State Board of Elections seeking an earlier date, arguing Cuomo was moving too slowly and leaving the 700,000 Republican-leaning residents of New York’s 27th Congressional District without representation.
Langworthy lashed out again Monday, saying in a statement that Cuomo was “stacking the deck to try and manipulate the outcome of these elections” by holding them on a day when Democratic voters would be flooding the polls for a hotly contested primary.
Cuomo has repeatedly said that holding the special election the same day as the presidential primary would save money.
Collins resigned Sept. 30. He pleaded guilty the next day to leaking confidential information about a pharmaceutical company’s clinical trials to his son and others. He was sentenced in January to two years and two months in federal prison.
Republican leaders in the western New York district have endorsed state Sen. Chris Jacobs for Collins’ seat. He will face Democrat Nate McMurray, who nearly unseated Collins in 2018 when he ran for a fourth term while under indictment.
Also to be decided are the Assembly seats left vacant by the resignations of Long Island Republican Andrew Raia, Queens Democrat Michele Titus and Monroe County Democrat Jamie Romeo, and the Senate seat vacated by Syracuse Republican Robert Antonacci.
Read the full announcement below:
WHEREAS, a vacancy exists in the office of Member of the United States House of Representatives from the twenty-seventh Congressional District in Genesee, Livingston, Orleans, Wyoming, and parts of Erie, Monroe, Niagara, and Ontario Counties, caused by the resignation of Chris Collins;
WHEREAS, a vacancy exists in the office of Member of the Assembly of the State of New York from the twelfth Assembly District in Suffolk County, caused by the resignation of Andrew Raia;
WHEREAS, a vacancy exists in the office of Member of the Assembly of the State of New York from the thirty-first Assembly District in Queens County, caused by the resignation of Michele Titus;
WHEREAS, a vacancy exists in the office of Member of the Assembly of the State of New York from the one hundred and thirty sixth Assembly District in Monroe County, caused by the resignation of Jamie Romeo;
WHEREAS, a vacancy exists in the office of Member of the Senate of the State of New York from the fiftieth Senate District including parts of Onondaga and Cayuga Counties, caused by the resignation of Robert Antonacci;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, ANDREW M. CUOMO, Governor of the State of New York, pursuant to Section 42 of the Public Officers Law, do hereby order and proclaim that an election for Members of the United States House of Representatives, the Assembly and Senate of the State of New York in the place and for the unexpired terms of Chris Collins, Andrew Raia, Michele Titus, Jamie Romeo, and Robert Antonacci be held in the said Assembly and Senate Districts on the twenty-eighth of April, two thousand twenty, such elections to be conducted in the manner prescribed by law for election of a Member of the United States House of Representatives, and Members of the Assembly and Senate of the State of New York.
GIVEN under my hand and the Privy Seal of the State in the City of Albany this tenth day of February in the year two thousand twenty.
BY THE GOVERNOR
Secretary to the Governor
