Erie County Democrats tonight nominated Grand Island attorney Angela J. Marinucci for County Clerk, as well as incumbent City Court judges Shannon M. Heneghan and James A. W. McLeod.
Marinucci’s nomination completes an all-women Democratic county-wide slate that also includes County Court candidate Susan Maxwell Barnes and current Family Court Judge Lisa Bloch Rodwin.
“Once again we are proud to back the most diverse and talented group of candidates,” said
Democratic Party Chair Jeremy J. Zellner. “It is gratifying that our nominees for these critical county-wide offices are all women, who represent more than half the population but have far less presence in county government than they should.”
Marinucci joins a growing list of new Democratic faces, such as Grand Island Supervisor Nathan McMurray, Peter Savage, April Baskin, and John Bruso at the County Legislature, Monica Wallace in the Assembly, and Brian Kulpa in Amherst.
Heneghan is also part of that effort, having just been appointed to City Court in December to fill the vacancy created when Judge Susan Eagan was elected to County Court.
“The Erie County Democratic Party continues to grow by nurturing the next generation of strong, independent leadership,” Zellner said. “This is a time of new ideas and solutions to the challenges facing us as a community, and our door is open to all those who are eager to serve.”
Marinucci, a western New York native and corporate immigration attorney with Berardi Immigration Law, graduated from Hobart and William Smith Colleges before earning her law degree at American University.
Zellner said he is particularly excited about Marinucci’s challenge to Republican Michael Kearns “who is more interested in grabbing headlines and politicizing his office than he is managing it on behalf of the people of Erie County.”
Heneghan is a 1995 graduate of Buffalo State College and a 1998 graduate of the University at Buffalo School of Law. She has nearly 20 years of commercial and criminal litigation in both defense and prosecutorial capacities.
A City Court judge since 1999, McLeod graduated from SUNY Fredonia in 1971 and earned his law degree from the University at Buffalo School of Law in 1974. He was the first African-American attorney to head the Legal Aid Bureau’s Public Defender Office and the first and only African-American to serve as Erie County’s Second Assistant County Attorney.