• New York Rep. Chris Collins will seek 4th term despite criminal indictment
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/nyregion/chris-collins-congress-election-campaign.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=nyregion&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront Representative Chris Collins, the New York Republican indicted on insider trading charges last month, reversed course on Monday and announced he would seek another term. Mr. Collins opted to stay on the ballot on the advice of lawyers who said his removal — a Byzantine procedure governed by New York’s complex election laws — would most likely face a Democratic lawsuit, and would muddle the election for his replacement, ultimately leaving the Western New York seat vulnerable to Democrats. “Because of the protracted and uncertain nature of any legal effort to replace Congressman Collins, we do not see a path allowing Congressman Collins to be replaced on the ballot,” Mark Braden, a lawyer for Mr. Collins, said in a statement. The decision ends a month of wrangling by would-be potential successors and is likely to buoy Democrats hoping to steal a seat from Republicans in one of the most conservative bastions in New York. Local Republican leaders seemed to be blindsided by the development, which was first reported by The Buffalo News. In August, county leaders interviewed several candidates, including state legislators, who were eager to replace Mr. Collins on the Republican line. The plan was to nominate Mr. Collins for a lesser district office later this week, perhaps a town clerkship or assessor’s post, a move that Mr. Collins had assured them that he would support. “We’ve been working for six weeks on this, and we felt there was a clear avenue to replace Congressman Collins, with his cooperation,” Nick Langworthy, chairman of the Erie County Republican Committee, said at a news conference on Monday. “This comes as a pretty great surprise to all of us who have worked very, very hard, and then had the rug pulled out from under us,” he added. In one scenario, Mr. Collins would have run for a vacancy in the Town of Eden, but had to establish residency there before the general election. (Residents there subsequently held a protest, holding signs that included, “Collins is a swamp monster.”) As a three-term congressman, Mr. Collins is not a senior member on Capitol Hill, but he gained notoriety in 2016 after he became the first member of Congress to endorse Donald J. Trump. Mr. Collins had said last month that he would “fill out the remaining few months” of his term but that it was in the “best interest of the constituents” of the 27th Congressional District for him to suspend his re-election campaign. Until Mr. Collins’s indictment, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had not paid much heed to the solidly red district, where Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than 40,000 registered voters. Instead, the organization has focused on more competitive races in New York in its quest to win control of the House of Representatives. But since then, the committee has placed the race on its “offensive battlefield” contesting 40 Republican-held districts, and greeted Mr. Collins’s re-entry on Monday by calling him “scandal-plagued.” Duncan Hunter's still running too, the corruption's getting even more brazen.
please run a Law and Order campaign, please do it.
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