State Assembly election, New York, 99th district, 2006
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The 2006 New York State Assembly election for New York's 99th District matches conservative Republican Greg Ball and Democrat Ken Harper against the Conservative and Independence Party incumbent Will Stephens. The Democratic Party of New York has targeted this seat as a potential pickup after the incumbent was defeated by a wide margin in the primary by a strong, well-funded challenger.
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[edit] Republican candidate
[edit] Greg Ball
Greg Ball, 28, is a retired Air Force Captain and Vice President of Exceed International Development Corporation. The former White House Staff officer scored a major upset when he defeated the incumbent Stephens in the September 12th primary by nearly a three to one margin.
The Ball campaign picked up steam since Stephen's wayward email referring to his constituents as 'idiots', and another letter purported to be sent by the Stephens campaign which claimed that Captain Ball received a dishonorable discharge, which was discredited when a copy of Captain Ball’s DD-214 showed he had received an honorable discharge. Stephens insisted neither he, his staff nor anyone associated with his campaign had knowledge of the letter and his involvement was never proven.
[edit] Democratic candidate
[edit] Ken Harper
Ken Harper, Chairman of the Putnam County Democratic Committee, is the only Democrat running in this Republican-leaning district. Visit Ken's campaign website where you can learn more about Ken and the issues in this race. http://www.kenharper2006.com/
[edit] Third-party candidates
[edit] Willis Stephens
Six-term incumbent Will Stephens II, 48, ran for re-election in the Republican Primary in September 2006 for the seat once held by his father and grandfather. After losing the Republican Primary, Stephens vowed to remain in the race on the Independent and Conservative ballott lines. He is rated as one of the two the most liberal Republicans in the Assembly, receiving endorsements from groups such as Planned Parenthood. He often voted with the Democratic majority which controls the Assembly.
Stephens faced heavy clouds of distrust going into the September 2006 Republican Primary. He made national headlines after a June 2005 guff when he referred to his constituents as "idiots" and suffered from low name recognition with 49% of his district which is located in Democratic-leaning Northern Westchester, which was recently added to the district in exchange for more conservative-leaning towns in Putnam and Dutchess counties.
Another controversial issue was when Assemblyman Stephens learned that challenger Ball had reserved the Web site www.willisstephens.net. Ball later announced his intentions to use the site to redirect people to his own campaign website.
[edit] The Republican primary
The primary campaign was a bitter one, with Ball railing against the 'machine politics' of Willis Stephens and Putnam County. Stephens remained arroganyley largely silent, running an inactive campaign, but, several mailings allegedly linked to his campaign insinuated Ball received a dishonorable discharge and was a homosexual, thereby attracting local news coverage.
The Ball campaign out raised Stephens by a significant margin, giving him a visible presence in local newspapers and television outlets. According to the latest filings prior to the primary, Stephens had $13,198.38 on-hand, while Ball had $86,117.03 of the money he has raised remaining. Stephens drew criticism for not returning campaign contributions from the Victory Fund-a political action committee that took contributions from indicted trash magnate James Galante.
On September 12, 2006, in the Republican Primary for New York's 99th Assembly District, challenger Greg Ball, defeated the incumbent Willis Stephens, by a mammoth margin: 71% for Ball, 29% for Stephens.
When learning of his defeat in the primary, Willis Stephens vowed to move forward on the minor party lines against Ball [1].
As reported on The Journal News' blog on September 27, 2006, Willis Stephens would most likely run for Supreme Court Justice, Queens County, NY; such a move would be the only manner that he would be removed from the ballot in the General Election on November 7, 2006 [2], clearing the way for a two way challenge for the Assembly seat between Greg Ball and his Democratic opponent, Ken Harper.
Willis, probably under heavy pressure from state party leaders, confirmed that he was no longer a candidate due to his acceptance of the NYS Conservative Party endorsement to run for Supreme Court Justice, Queens County, NY; his father opined that his son did not have much of a chance of winning [3].
[edit] External links
- New York Board of Elections Campaign Finance Database
- Newscopy.org, Political Website with extensive coverage of the 99th AD race
- New Yorkers on the Ball
- Ken Harper for Assembly
