Jamie Romeo, chair of the Monroe County Democratic Committee, and Jaclyn Richard, president of the Rochester chapter of the National Organization for Women, have already declared their intention to seek the Assembly seat held by Joe Morelle, who’s running for Congress.  Robin Wilt, a member of the Brighton Town Board, now plans to join them.

Wilt was one of four Democrats running for 25th Congressional District seat; Morelle won the June 26 primary and became the party’s candidate. Over the past few days, there were signs from the Wilt camp that she was gearing up for an Assembly campaign, most notably: her website and social media pages changed from “Wilt for Congress” to “Wilt for Assembly.”

And yesterday, just as Wilt was marching in the Irondequoit Fourth of July parade, her campaign manager, Wynette Vickers,  sent out a rather brief statement that concluded with “Happy  Announcement Day!”

But there have been some questions about whether Wilt can run for the seat. Reporters at WROC channel 8 first raised questions about her eligibility. State law says that Assembly candidates have to have lived in the state for five years, and in the district they want to represent for the past 12 months.

Wilt is a Rochester native and has lived in the area for a long time, but from 2012 to 2016 she lived in and voted in the state of Washington. Monroe County Board of Elections officials told WROC that could be enough to disqualify her from the office.

But it doesn’t look like Wilt is going to accept that reasoning.  She told WROC that it’s for the courts to decide whether she meets the residency requirement.

This article appears in Jul 4-10, 2018.

Covers county government and whatever else comes my way. Greyhound dad; vegetarian; attempted photographer with a love for film and fixer; sometimes cyclist.

8 replies on “Wilt pivots to Assembly run”

  2. How many professional losing candidates can Rochester support? First Alex White. Then Rachel Barnhart. Now Robin Wilt.

  3. Frank…Morelle is a professional candidate as well.

    Better to see smart caring candidates keep trying than give up. New candidates have to keep trying to hopefully displace career politicians.

  4. Tom…Guess you missed that Morelle wasn’t a LOSING candidate, which was the point of my comment. I’ve lost track of how many times White has crashed and burned running for office. In Barnhart’s case, this is what, the fourth time she’s gone down in flames politically? How many losses do you think it takes to classify someone as a “professional losing candidate”. I’ll give Wilt credit for starting at the bottom by first getting elected to local office before aiming higher. But with this assembly run, she looks like she’s now in danger of joining White and Barnhart on the also-ran list.
    As to those evil “career politicians”, setting aside the fact that that merely means that that they have experience in their job and are re-elected by their constituents, at what point do you believe that a “new” candidate, once elected to office, becomes a nasty old “career politician”. One term? Two? More? Does this mean that you favor substituting term limits for the right of the voters to elect the candidate of their choice?

  5. People who’ve lost elections:
    Joe Morelle: 2
    Adam McFadden: 2
    Mark Assini: 3
    James Piampiano: 7

    Women need to run like men do. All the time. Only then will it be normal.

    Telling women they shouldn’t run is just another way of telling them to shut up. I don’t think either of the women you mentioned will do that. These women took on tough races and made an impact. No wonder more women don’t get in the ring.

  6. In looking at the NYS Constitution, Ms. Wilt may well prevail on the legal issue. That said, she should have been more forthright on her Website.

  7. Actually, this election law statute was upheld when State Senator Funke’s aspiring opponent was ruled ineligible for the exact same reason, 2 years ago. I’m not sure what makes her case any different. She voted in Washington, thus, establishing one of the key anchors in residency. I think the board of elections has already spoken, but she is choosing to forge ahead and hope the court rules differently.

    Also, Robin Wilt ran against Joe Robach for State Senate and got beat pretty handily, so she didn’t really start at the bottom. She tried a pretty big leap a few years ago, before she moved to Washington.

  8. Robin Wilt is running for Assembly, a job that puts her in a position to make new laws. It seems disingenuous – to say the least – that her first major move is to violate an existing law on residency in declaring her candidacy to run for a position that she is not eligible to run for. This should automatically rule out her candidacy.

    This is really a sad commentary on the state of political candidates today. And after seeing her in two Congressional debates, she may be the worst candidate in recent memory when judged on the ability to respond to a question in a debate setting. The only qualities she seems to have going for her are her gender and ethnicity, and sadly, this is all that matters to a large chunk of the local population. This sort of dynamic is what gave us Judge Leticia Astacio. This is what you get when your standards reach rock bottom.

Comments are closed.