Tuesday, July 21, 2009

DC 37 Announces Endorsements in ‘09 Races - Queens Campaigner

Read original...

The city’s largest municipal employee union announced its picks last Thursday for this year’s City Council races.

DC 37, which has more than 125,000 members in various fields including nursing, sanitation and education workers, predominantly selected the Council’s Queens incumbents for their election choices.

The union went against the status quo in the race for Democrat James Sanders’ 31st Council District seat and the race Republican Eric Ulrich’s seat in the 32nd Council District.

Marq Claxton, who will be challenging Sanders in the Democratic primary in September, got the nod by the union. Frank Gulluscio, a Democrat who ran against Ulrich in the February special election for the seat but was removed from the ballot by a petition challenge, was also endorsed by DC 37.

For the elections for the seats left vacated by current Council members, the union endorsed Democrat Jerry Iannece for Democratic Councilman Tony Avella’s seat in the 19th District, Democrat S.J. Jung for Democratic Councilman John Liu’s seat in the 20th District, state Assemblyman Mark Weprin (D-Little Neck) for the 23rd District seat vacated by his brother David Weprin, Democrat Jimmy van Bramer for the District 26 seat vacated by Councilman Eric Gioia and former Queens Deputy Borough President Karen Koslowitz (D) for her run for the 29th Council District seat that will be vacated by Melinda Katz (D).