Musician Andrew Russo (right) and East Syracuse mayor Dan Liedka (center) are competing for the Republican nomination in the 49th State Senate District. The winner will challenge Democratic incumbent state Sen. David Valesky (left).
UPDATE: The statewide Senate Republican Campaign Committee endorsed Russo, The Post-Standard reported May 9.
A political rookie and a village mayor are challenging a veteran state senator for New York’s 49th state Senate District.
The rookie is Andrew Russo, a pianist from Fayetteville who is seeking the Republican designation. The other Republican, Dan Liedka, is the mayor of East Syracuse. The incumbent is Sen. David Valesky D-Onieda, who has represented the district since 2004.
The race is drawing unusual attention because of what’s seen as a Republican resurgence both locally and nationally. In 2010, Democrats in general are more vulnerable because of Republicans in the right wing, says Kristi Andersen, a political scientist at Syracuse University. And New York’s incumbent lawmakers, she said, aren’t helping themselves with their performance.
“Incumbents to the state Senate probably have more challengers this year than they normally do because the legislature has been so dysfunctional that people are angry,” Andersen said.
And the local political picture is also still unclear. In late March, the Onondaga County Republican Party decided to hold a primary election after a confusing multi-county vote on March 3 that failed to produce a clear winner for the nomination.
That’s not a surprise, says Danny Hayes, a Syracuse University political scientist. “When parties in New York state decide to hold a primary, it’s normally because the party officials can’t agree on which candidate to endorse,” said Hayes. “So they leave that decision to the party’s primary voters.”
A primary is an election in which only party members vote to choose the party’s candidate. The primary will be Sept. 14, 2010. The general election is Nov. 2, 2010.
The 49th state Senate District runs through parts of Oneida, Onondaga and Cayuga Counties, and includes all of Madison County.
Recently, the district has shifted toward the Democratic Party. As of April 1, district had 182,144 total enrolled voters. Democrats had 37 percent compared to 33 percent for Republicans. The last time Republicans had the majority of enrolled voters in the district was November 2006.
Here are sketches of the three candidates:
David Valesky, (Democrat, incumbent)
Valesky, 44, was born and raised in Oneida. He received his bachelor’s degree from SUNY Potsdam and his master’s degree from the University of Connecticut. He is the son and husband of public school teachers. He stresses that his children attend public schools.
Valesky and his staff did not respond to three interview requests.
In his earlier campaigns, Valesky was also endorsed by the Working Families Party and the Alliance for Quality Education, an organization that advocates for more spending on education. Lately, Valesky has been criticized by members of those groups because he voted for a $1.4-billion state cut to education.
Before being elected to the state senate, Valesky was a host of the “Hour CNY” talk show, which focused on state and national issues’s effects on Central New York communities. He is also a former aide to Michael Bragman, a longtime former majority leader in the State Assembly.
As senator, Valesky has supported “Green Jobs NY,” a program aimed at creating 14,000 construction jobs, lower energy costs and weatherize more than one million homes. He supports more such niche, specialty jobs programs, he has said. “Previous one-size-fits-all models were well-intentioned, but failed to spur the long-term growth we desperately need,” said Valesky on his Web site.
Valesky lives in the Madison County city of Oneida with his wife Julie and their three sons.
Andrew Russo (Republican, challenger)
Russo, 35, is a Grammy-nominated pianist, director of music at Le Moyne College and newcomer to politics.
In his Senate campaign, Russo has criticized Valesky and the Democrats in the Senate for passing a state budget this year that increased taxes, fees and state spending.
Russo did not respond to three requests for interviews.
Russo received his bachelor’s and master’s degree from The Julliard School. Russo lives in Fayetteville with his wife and their two children.
Russo made news when The Post-Standard reported that Onondaga County Board of Elections records showed he had not voted in any races between 2001and 2008. But Russo told The Post-Standard he had voted in 2006 by affidavit. Russo has also been criticized for registering as a non-affiliated voter. This year, he enrolled as a Republican.
In his campaign, Russo has promised to work with both Democrats and fellow Republicans to break legislative gridlock. “I will be a reformer who will shake up Albany so it works not just for the connected few, but for Central New Yorkers who need an ally in government,” Russo said on his Web site.
His background as a musician and educator, he says, would give him a different approach to politics. “I am not a professional politician,” Russo said on his Web site. “I am not your ordinary political candidate. But these are not ordinary times.”
Daniel Liedka (Republican, challenger)
Dan Liedka has been mayor of East Syracuse since 2007. Liedka, 41, is also the sales manager at the Doubletree Hotel in East Syracuse and a sports broadcaster for ESPN 360, Time Warner Cable SportsNet and The NHL Network.
He is a native of East Syracuse. From 2003 to 2007, he was a village trustee before being elected mayor. He and his wife, Kimberlye, have a son, Luke.
In his bid for the state senate, Liedka said in an interview, he hopes to use his experiences as East Syracuse’s mayor to help a larger scope of people.“I’ve proven myself at that level,” he said. “I’ve created jobs, cut spending, fought crime.”
On jobs, the village of East Syracuse redesigned the Main Street area to attract some new businesses to the village, Liedka said. “The fact that we’re reinvesting in our village has gotten attention,” he said.
The village is the headquarters for Beacon Federal Bank, a $6-million building that, as mayor, Liedka helped to recruit. “We helped them cut through a lot of the red tape and we got them at the table,” he said.
On spending in East Syracuse, Liedka worked with other village officials to restructure some departments that helped to cut the budget by half a million dollars. That included cutting a maintenance supervisor, an investigator with the police department and a clerical position within the police department through attrition.
“Labor is definitely the biggest expense of any municipality,” Liedka said. “It’s roughly 60 percent of our budget and when we were able to eliminate six positions with benefits and retirement that gets up to $500,000 pretty quick.”
On crime, Liedka was among advocates of aggressive community policing to have officers more visible on the streets in the village. That helped to discourage gang-related activity, he said. “Basically, we just went on an aggressive effort with our officers to push the gangs out of our village and let them know that we weren’t going to let that type of behavior exist,” he said.
In his campaign for the state senate, Liedka calls for limiting campaign donations, a constitutional convention to rewrite the state’s government operations and for scrutinizing government for efficiency.
“We need to look at every level of government to get more efficient,” Liedka said, “and run them like a business.”
(Jennifer Sheppard is a graduate student in magazine, newspaper and online journalism.)
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