Dems Pick Candidate To Run For Weiner's Seat

The New York Times reports:

Queens Democratic leaders on Thursday named David I. Weprin, a 58-year-old state assemblyman, as their nominee in a Sept. 13 special election to replace former Representative Anthony D. Weiner, according to Democratic officials. The winner of the election will serve until the end of 2012.

Mr. Weiner, who had been considered a strong contender in the 2013 mayoral election, resigned from his Congressional seat on June 16 after acknowledging that he had carried on sexually explicit online conversations with at least six women.

The long-term future of the Ninth Congressional District, which Mr. Weiner had represented, is unclear. As a result of the 2010 census, New York must lose two Congressional seats, and some political observers believe that the Ninth District, which includes parts of Brooklyn and Queens, could be eliminated. That means whoever wins Mr. Weiner’s seat could be out of a job by December 2012.

Mr. Weprin, an attorney, was elected to the State Assembly in 2010 after serving on the City Council for eight years. He ran unsuccessfully for city comptroller in 2009. He is a member of prominent a Queens political family; his father, Saul, served as the speaker of the State Assembly, and his brother, Mark, is a member of the City Council and a former assemblyman.

Philip Ragusa, the Queens Republican Party chairman, said that his party had not yet settled on a nominee for the Congressional seat. But most political analysts believe that the nomination is likely to go to Bob Turner, a cable-television executive, who, fueled by a national wave of anti-incumbency, won an unexpectedly high 40 percent of the vote against Mr. Weiner in 2010. Another possible Republican contender, City Councilman Eric Ulrich, announced this week that he would not seek the seat.