Voters will select new state representatives to replace convicted crooks Sheldon Silver and Dean Skelos in special elections Tuesday.
Silver, the former powerful Assembly speaker, and ex-Senate Majority Leader Skelos were booted from office late last year after their convictions in pay-to-play scandals. The seats they held have been vacant for four months.
The candidates running for Silver’s former 65th Assembly District seat include Alice Cancel, who was nominated by the Democratic Party with help from the disgraced ex-speaker’s political club.
Cancel’s rivals include Yuh-Line Niou, a Democrat running on the Working Families Party line, Republican businessman Lester Chang and Green Party candidate Dennis Levy.
A longtime activist on the Lower East Side, Cancel is on a leave of absence from her job as a community rep for city Comptroller Scott Stringer. But Stringer has endorsed Niou over his employee, and the Democratic establishment has largely shunned Cancel’s candidacy.
Cancel called Silver a “hero” at the Democrats’ nominating convention.
Meanwhile, Republican lawyer Chris McGrath and Democratic Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky are locked in a spirited contest to succeed Skelos in Nassau County’s Senate District 9, which borders Queens.
Democrats hope Kaminsky, a former federal prosecutor running on an ethics-reform platform, will benefit from disgust over Skelos’ crimes.



