James Tedisco, the minority leader of the New York State Assembly, was tapped this afternoon as the Republican nominee for the upstate congressional seat vacated by newly appointed Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.
The decision came in a weighted vote as the 10 GOP county chairmen in the 20th District met in Albany this afternoon.
Tedisco -- who does not live in the district but whose Assembly seat overlaps with parts of it -- beat out a former Assembly minority leader, John Faso, for the nod, the New York Daily News reported. Faso was the party's unsuccessful candidate for governor in 2006.
Other contenders for the Republican nod included former state GOP Chairman Alexander (Sandy) Treadwell, who lost to Gillibrand in last November's election; Richard Wager, a former aide to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who unsuccessfully challenged Treadwell last year; and state Sen. Betty Little.
New York Gov. David Paterson has yet to set a date for a special election for the seat, but it is widely expected to take place sometime in March. Paterson named Gillibrand last Friday to succeed now-Secretary of State Clinton, who had held the Senate seat for the previous eight years.
Democratic leaders in the district were scheduled to hold a conference call Tuesday night to begin the process of selecting their candidate.
Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 4-3 in the 20th District, which stretches from New York City's northernmost suburbs nearly to the Canadian border.
Gillibrand's upset win over then-GOP Rep. John Sweeney in 2006 marked the first time that the district had been represented by a Democrat in nearly three decades, and Republicans are now optimistic about regaining it.
A onetime high school guidance counselor and basketball coach in upstate Schenectady, the 58-year-old Tedisco was elected to the Schenectady City Council in 1977 and then won his first term in the Assembly in 1982.
He currently leads the GOP in a legislative chamber that has been dominated by the Democrats for more than 40 years. A conservative, Tedisco gained attention two years ago for vocally opposing a controversial plan by then-Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer to give drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants.
"Jim Tedisco is a strong candidate who has a record of standing up and fighting for the interests and values of his constituents. He is the consensus candidate of local Republicans in upstate New York and we are confident he will attract the support of mainstream middle class voters as he has in the past," National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Ken Spain declared.
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