Buffalo Common Council Member Leah Halton-Pope likely to replace Assembly Member Crystal Peoples-Stokes

A city of Buffalo Common Council member is expected to be named to replace Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes on the ballot, after she announces Wednesday she won’t be seeking reelection. 

According to two Western New York Democratic insiders, Buffalo Common Council Majority Leader Leah Halton-Pope, who served as Peoples-Stokes’ chief of staff for years, will likely become the new Democratic Party nominee for her Buffalo-area Assembly district. Peoples-Stokes, a longtime fixture of Democratic leadership in Western New York, has served in the Legislature for over two decades.

The timing of People-Stokes announcement means that she and party leaders can hand-pick her successor without going through the typical open primary process. The deadline to file petitions passed on Monday, and Peoples-Stokes is the only candidate to submit signatures in the deep-blue district where the Democratic nominee is all but guaranteed to win in November. In order to replace her on the ballot, party insiders that make up an obscure body called a committee to fill vacancies will choose who will appear instead. The process is similar to that for a special election, in which party leaders choose a nominee to run outside the normal election cycle.

State Sen. Jeremy Zellner, who also serves as chair of the Erie County Democratic Committee, said he plans to convene the committee to fill vacancies this weekend, members of which will speak with all interested candidates.

“I anticipate it'll be unanimous one way or another,” Zellner told City & State on Tuesday. “We've never really had it any other way.”

Zellner said the committee will interview all candidates in the coming days. He said Halton-Pope is on the shortlist of possible replacements, and so are Buffalo Common Council Member Zeneta Everhart and Erie County Legislator Lawrence Dupre. Zellner declined to identify a front-runner, but he spoke highly of Halton-Pope, whom he’s had a close working relationship with for the last eight years. It’s a relationship that Zellner said he looks forward to continuing if Halton-Pope is chosen to run for the seat.

“I don't want to be talking about frontrunners before she makes her decision, but I know Leah very well,” Zellner said. “I’m very close with her and she would do a remarkable job.” 

Zellner won a special election in February to succeed Sean Ryan, Buffalo's new mayor. Ryan declined to comment on Peoples-Stokes’ plans. Zellner said the last two months in Albany have taught him that state lawmakers need to work together, build relationships and bring people together to get things done – traits he said Halton-Pope emulates. "Leah has done that over her career," Zellner said. 

A third Western New York Democratic source named Halton-Pope as one of the two most likely to picks for the Assembly seat, with Demone Smith – Halton-Pope’s chief of staff – as the other. However, Zellner seemed to throw cold water on the idea by pointing out Smith likely wouldn’t cross his boss if she wanted the job. The insider also mentioned Dupre, but suggested he would be more likely to run for Halton-Pope’s Common Council seat.

Peoples-Stokes’ retirement timing and subsequent insider jockeying to replace her is nothing new to Albany, but it still drew a quick rebuke from a good government advocate. “This is a time-honored tradition,” said Blair Horner, senior policy adviser for the New York York Public Interest Research Group. “This is not the first time it's ever happened … The parties like to control who they believe the best candidate is, and it's far better to let the voters of that party make that choice.”

Politico New York first broke the news of Peoples-Stoke’s retirement, but news quickly spread. Although her office did not confirm her retirement, the NAACP New York State Conference put out a statement Tuesday afternoon commending Peoples-Stokes for her decades in the Assembly. “The State Conference is grateful for her courage, her persistence, and her clarity of purpose,” the organization said, particularly commending Peoples-Stokes work in legalizing adult-use marijuana. “She never lost sight of who she served or why it mattered. New York is better because of her work.”

Halton-Pope did not respond to a request for comment, and Peoples-Stokes’ office said it would not comment until tomorrow at 2 p.m.