New York

Democrats continue to face issues ranging from President Obama's declining popularity to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich's public trail, but now the ongoing investigation into New York Representative Charles Rangel's ethics violations has the party embattled even more.

For the past two years, the House Ethics Committee has investigated Rangel for tax fraud and other allegations since the New York representative relinquished the coveted chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee after being pressured by Democrats to resign.

"To my family, friends and constituents who have been there for me throughout, I can only say without dispute that I won't let you down," the 20-term congressman stated in Harlem. "Thank God the report is complete, and...we will do like anything else when we discuss the findings"...

A college student in New York is once again getting the run-around from school officials for trying to express his religious views on campus.

Last year, Joseph Hayon was initially barred by school officials from distributing pro-life material on the campus of Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. The matter was resolved only after the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) intervened.

But since Hayon, president of the student Republican Club, wanted to hold an on-campus forum entitled "The Economic, Political, Social, and Legal Outcome on Same-Gender Marriage" to defend the definition of marriage as one man and one woman, another free-speech situation has popped up...

(CNSNews.com) – A federal district court extended an order on Wednesday that allows a 13-year-old boy to return to his public school wearing his rosary until at least Sept. 10. The boy, Raymond Hosier, had been suspended from Oneida Middle School for wearing a Catholic rosary, which he had worn since the age of seven after his brother was killed in a car accident.

Hosier, a seventh-grader at the school in Schenectady, New York, was suspended for the day on Monday, May 17 for wearing his rosary. School officials claimed the rosary beads were gang-related and that Hosier had violated its dress code, which prohibits students from wearing anything it deems to be “gang related.”

The school’s dress code, however, does not specifically mention rosary beads. But the student dress code says, "A student's dress, grooming and appearance, including hair, jewelry, make-up and nails, shall: ...  read more »

Facing "allegations of misconduct" that reportedly involve sexual harassment against a male staffer, freshman Rep. Eric Massa is resigning Monday.

"I own his reality," the New York Democrat said in a statement, admitting to using language that "might make a chief petty officer feel uncomfortable."

Massa went on to call Washington an "incredibly toxic atmosphere" and said the ethics committee probe "would tear my family and my staff apart."

"In that investigators would be free to ask anything about me going back to my birth, I simply cannot rise to that level of perfection," he said. "God knows that I am a deeply flawed and imperfect person."...

Former Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Tuesday that Democrats are “scared” heading into this fall’s election and that he decided not to run for the Senate from New York because he feared his party would lose the seat after a tough primary.

“The fall is going to be a tough, tough fall for whatever Democrat emerges,” Ford said during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” his first since announcing Monday night that he is not running. “It would have been a tough brutal fight.”

Ford, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate from Tennessee in 2006, denied reports that he was scared off by the potential candidacy of Mort Zuckerman — who is believed to have courted many of Ford’s potential fundraisers and supporters — insisting that he would have been able to raise plenty of money regardless of who else entered the race....

ALBANY, N.Y. – A Conservative Party candidate has withdrawn his concession in a close special election for a U.S. House seat, and New York election officials are beginning to count paper ballots.

Doug Hoffman made the announcement that he's "unconceding" on Glenn Beck's national radio show Monday.

Hoffman's spokesman, Rob Ryan, says that the campaign is looking at the remaining military, absentee and paper ballots. Counting the more than 10,000 paper ballots could take days...

Washington -- Conservative Doug Hoffman conceded the race in the 23rd Congressional District last week after receiving two pieces of grim news for his campaign: He was down 5,335 votes with 93 percent of the vote counted on election night, and he had barely won his stronghold in Oswego County.

As it turns out, neither was true.

But Hoffman’s concession -- based on snafus in Oswego County and elsewhere that left his vote undercounted -- set off a chain of events that echoed all the way to Washington, D.C., and helped secure passage of a historic health care reform bill.

Democratic Rep. Bill Owens was quickly sworn into office on Friday, a day before the rare weekend vote in the House of Representatives. His support sealed his party’s narrow victory on the health care legislation...

New York's governor has called the legislature to a special session.

The state Senate will be the stumbling block for the governor because there are reportedly only 25 of the 32 votes needed for passage. The lower House, however, has already passed it. Jason McGuire of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms believes the issue of same gender marriage is fundamental.

"If we reject the sacredness of marriage, and as a culture we've already walked away from the sanctity of life, really what else is there? These are the things that go back to the very beginning of the book of Genesis, and that is the point at which the devil is at this moment attacking, and Christians need to stand up and defend," McGuire urges...

Albany, N.Y. (AP) - Advocates for same-sex marriage are hitting New York's state capital hard, trying to sway the few votes needed for final legislative approval of the bill in a special session Tuesday.

This comes a week after a Maine referendum soundly repealed that state's new same-sex marriage law.

What appears to be a likely vote in New York is being forced by Gov. David Paterson who put it on the agenda of the extraordinary session he's calling for Tuesday...

A pro-life group that backed Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman says the Democratic special election victory in New York's 23rd Congressional District is actually a win for motivated conservative activists.

Democrat and retired Air Force Captain Bill Owens, running in a historically Republican stronghold, capitalized on a split that emerged between Republican liberals and conservatives. Owens defeated Hoffman (49 percent to 45 percent) after the withdrawal of liberal Republican candidate DeDe Scozzafava over the weekend, whose name remained on the ballot, drawing 6 percent of the vote.

The race grabbed national attention when a rift developed among Republican Party leaders...