Wednesday, March 3, 2010

New York Dems Behaving Badly Part III: Eric Massa to retire under allegations of sexual harassment of a male staffer


Is it something in New York water?  First we had Governor Paterson’s shenanigans leaving him teetering, then Charlie Rangel’s corruption that cost him his gavel, now we have House Rep. Eric Massa in questions of hanky panky of the queer kind.              
From Politico: Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) will not seek reelection — after only one term in office. 
According to several House aides on both sides of the aisle, the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer. 
Massa told POLITICO Wednesday afternoon that no one has brought allegations of misconduct to him. 
Asked about the sexual harassment allegations, Massa said: "When someone makes a decision to leave Congress, everybody says everything. I have health issues. I'll talk about it [later].” 
Massa recently suffered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and he has said that his experience with cancer drove him to run for office so he could help reform the health care system
A 20-year Navy veteran, Massa was elected to office in 2008. He serves on the Agriculture, Armed Services and Homeland Security committees, and his departure endangers Democrats’ hold on his competitive upstate New York seat. 
The good news is that Massa’s seat is in one of the few Republican pockets in New York and should be an easy win for Republicans. They already have Tom Reed lined up.

2 comments:

Samuel Gonzalez said...

Cliff

It's not the water here in New York, or at least it hasn't affacted me any. New York is a one party state basically controled by Democrats and an occasianal Republican RINO like Pataki. I never heard of this guy before and probably 95% of New Yorkers never heard of him either. But, because it envolves a DEM, it gets swept under the rug.

Anonymous said...

You left out Elliot Spitzer. And I don't think it is in the water. It's just in order to get to the top of the NY political ladder, you have to be a pretty shady character already.

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