N.Y. pols battle for Senate seats in special election faceoff

Republican Julie Killian, a former Rye city councilwoman, is taking on Democrat Shelley Mayer, an assemblywoman from Yonkers, in a contest that has generated national attention and sparked millions of dollars of spending by the candidates and their allies on both sides of the aisle. "It looks to be an awful lot of money spent," said Jeanne Zaino, a political science professor at Iona College in New Rochelle.

Two parties bring balance

The news that Democrats in the state Senate are unifying behind Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers is the very definition of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse. Reunification puts to an end a faction of senators from the Democratic Party who called themselves the Independent Democratic Caucus, a group that sided with Republicans and gave Republicans de-facto control of the chamber.