BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Availability Heuristic, Anchoring Bias, and Fundamental Attribution Error, with Unattributed Quote as the most egregious example at 19.8% saturation with 136 hits. Analysis detected 891 faulty-reasoning hits from 687 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 41.6% and a BS Rank of 45% (14,847 of 26,848 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 55.30% of the article peer group.
Last week I brought you the news of Amherst Town Council Member John Davis’s plans to challenge Jeremy Zellner for chair of the Erie County Democratic Committee.
Since then Cheektowaga Town Supervisor Brian Nowak has announced he will run for party treasurer — a spot currently occupied by Zellner loyalist Olivia Owens, the clerk of the Erie County Legislature.
And Erie County Legislator Jeanne Vinal, also of Amherst, has thrown her hat into the ring for party chair.
There are rumors of other candidates for chair waiting in the wings: Attorney Sean Cooney.
Adam Fogel, chief of staff for U.S.
Rep.
Tim Kennedy.
John Flynn, the former district attorney, now Tonawanda town supervisor.
Lobbyist Jack O’Donnell.
There’s even been talk of Len Lenihan, Zellner’s predecessor party chair, coming out of retirement to serve one two-year term as a transition from Zellner to whoever is next in the driver’s seat.
Zellner says he will seek an eighth term when the party’s 1,000-plus committee members elect new officers at its biennial reorganization meeting in September.
Critics point to his loss in last month’s primary for the 61st District Senate seat — and the concurrent loss of the party’s endorsed candidate for the 149th District Assembly seat — as evidence that his leadership has run past its expiration date.
Even those detractors agree Zellner likely would win reelection if a vote were held today.
Still he may be looking at an exit strategy — if not this fall, perhaps in January, when he’ll no longer be collecting a state senator’s paycheck.
That job has a base salary of $142,000.
Zellner had to give up his job as county elections commissioner to run for the Senate seat; that job paid him $151,ooo last year.
The pay he’s been collecting as party chair for the past two years is a fraction of the income he’s become accustomed to.
That makes him ripe for a new job.
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There are several ways the situation might resolve, including:
Gov.
Kathy Hochul, eager to avoid a public squabble over leadership of her party in her home county before the November election, could find Zellner a job in the next month.
That seems improbable.
There’d likely be a squabble at the reorganization meeting anyway — just without Zellner in the mix — and Hochul certainly would prefer stability until after election day.
A more likely scenario is that Zellner stands for reelection in September, but agrees to step down in January to make way for new leadership.
In exchange, he gets a well-paying state job — commissioner of the Department of Motor Vehicle perhaps, or a post with the Liquor Authority.
Those candidates rumored to be waiting in the wings may want their names in the conversation not because they want Zellner’s job, but because they want to be part of negotiating who gets it.
Finally, Zellner could run for reelection as chair fully intending to serve the full two years of his new term.
He may hope June’s stinging and expensive losses will fade from memory.
He may put his shoulder to the tasks of replenishing the party’s coffers and rallying divided Democrats around a candidate for county executive next year.
But if he does that, he’ll be stuck with the chair’s salary, which he stopped taking when he became elections commissioner in 2017 — then started taking again in 2024.
In the first six months of this year, he drew just over $30,000 in wages for the party’s housekeeping committee, according to the latest campaign finance disclosures.
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That’s what my best is on door number two: reelection as chair, leading to a negotiated exit with a plumb patronage post at the end.
If there is going to be a floor fight in September, the players should become clear over the next three weeks.
Party leadership last week announced there will be a meeting of party leaders to interview candidates for chair on Aug. 17 at J’s White Elephant on Abbott Road in Lackawanna.
Speakers
1speaker3.5%attributed speech663writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageZellner
24 attributed words100% of attributed speech75% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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