[BN] Politics Now : Chris Collins gets the WaPo Style section treatment [The Buffalo News, N.Y.]

Jan. 23—JAN. 23, 2024

BY CHARLIE SPECHT

Chris Collins gets the WaPo Style section treatment

You have to give Chris Collins a certain amount of credit for his shamelessness. His boldness.

The former Congressman from Clarence, who was imprisoned in 2020 for insider trading, was the subject of a big takeout in this weekend's Washington Post Style section focusing on Collins' life in Florida after his pardon by President Donald Trump.

"Can this ex-congressman show Trump the path to life after indictment?" reads the WaPo headline. "Convicted for insider trading, Chris Collins got a pardon from Trump and found warm refuge in Florida — where crime is hardly a political liability, and comebacks are always possible."

I reported in July that Collins was considering a run for Congress in Florida after his release from the federal penitentiary. In what was the best quote from the Post story, Liz Stephenson, one of Collins' neighbors on Marco Island, explained why Collins' conviction would not be a political liability.

"We have a lot of criminals and nuts down here," Stephenson said of the Sunshine State.

The profile compares Collins to Trump and says the former president, if he is convicted of the numerous crimes of which he is accused, in a strange way could end up like Collins — disgraced but not defeated, and in a twisted way, wearing the conviction like some sort of badge of honor.

There are interviews with some notable WNY politicos, including Nate McMurray, Chris Grant and Dennis Vacco, and friends such as Chris Graham of Volland Electric, as well as other colorful characters from inside the "Power Cubicle" of his prison block.

The article says Vacco helped launch Collins' political career at a Buffalo Sabres game, and also contains an interesting tidbit — part of a yet-unpublished memoir that was given to the article's author — about Collins and the region's old Westinghouse plant.

It references Collins' rocky tenure as Erie County executive, saying his Lean Six Sigma efficiency programs "had the unpopular effect of leading to cuts in the county's workforce through layoffs."

Interestingly, it says Collins negotiated the sale of biotech company Zeptometrix — located prominently on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus — while he was still in prison.

The story reinforces what many people already think of Collins: He is breathtakingly out of touch with many of the people he previously represented. He lives in a $6 million Florida estate and recently purchased a $300,000 Bentley for his wife and an Aston Martin for himself.

Even if it makes his critics ill, Collins promises one thing: He is not receding from the spotlight anytime soon.

News & Notes:Erie County Republicans have endorsed

— two police officers for Assembly seats. Marc Priore, an Erie County sheriff's lieutenant, has been chosen to challenge incumbent Democrat Patrick Burke in the 142nd District, and Cheektowaga Police Lt. Pat Chludzinski has been picked to run against 143rd District Assembly Member Monica Wallace.

The endorsement process infuriated Joe Flatley, who had already announced he was running in the 142nd. Flatley, after the GOP meeting, sent out a news release saying the endorsement process was "unethical, illegal and unfair."

— Assembly Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes says Speaker Carl Heastie "made some really good committee appointments" with chairs of the labor, economic development, transportation, small business and library committees all going to upstate members.

"It looks very much different than what traditionally has happened," with more chair appointments going to downstate members, Peoples-Stokes told my colleague Stephen T. Watson.

— Erie County Democratic Chairman Jeremy Zellner has announced the following delegates for President Biden:

In the 23rd Congressional District, Terrence MacKinnon (Hamburg Democratic chair); Jessica Schuster (Concord Democratic chair); Terrence Melvin (secretary-treasurer, NYS AFL-CIO); Hilda Lando (Steuben County legislator); Shawn Hogan (Steuben County Democratic chair); and Marjorie Lawlor (Steuben County Democratic vice chair).

In the 26th Congressional District, Zellner; Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz; Howard Johnson (Erie County legislator); Mitch Nowakowski (Buffalo Common Council member); April Baskin (Erie County Legislature chair); Leah Halton-Pope (Buffalo Common Council member); Bonnie Kane Lockwood (Gov. Kathy Hochul's regional director); and Melissa Bochenski (Hochul's deputy chief of staff).

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