Says proposal would discriminate against unpopular, inefficient legislators like herself

By Wad Rotson

Erie County Legislator Betty Jean Grant came out swinging yesterday at a news conference designed to block support for a proposal that would allow voters the opportunity to reduce the Legislature from fifteen members to eleven.

Grant: "Huh?"

“I actually think we need more legislators,” said Grant.

She asked those in the audience to imagine how they would feel “if your job was in the hands of ignorant and uninformed voters who have no idea what I have done for them over the years.”

Grant, referring to her previous election-day losses on both Buffalo’s Common Council and the School Board said she doesn’t need a “third opportunity” for voters to prove to her that “they don’t know what they’re doing when it comes to electing officials to lead them.”

Grant says that the frustration she hears from her constituents indicates they will “downsize anything” if they think it will lower their taxes.  Grant is working on her own ballot initiative for November that asks voters to downsize something other than the Legislature, where she has been employed since 2006.

“Downsize the DMV,” said Grant.  “Or the Holding Center.  Let someone else besides me get voted out of their job for once.”

Grant explained that asking the voters to downsize the Legislature should be illegal because “in reality they are being forced to discriminate against people like me.”  The former operator of an East Side delicatessen, Grant maintained that she is strongly opposed to “discrimination of any kind against Betty Jean Grant and everyone else who is segregated from their elected positions by uneducated voters.”

She said the electorate deserves some credit, however.

“I think Americans have already had their say on discrimination and segregation,” said Grant.  “Which is why I should never be voted out of this office.  It should be considered an illegal act.”

At the conclusion of the press conference, Grant tried to lead her interns in a chant of “Attica, Attica” before realizing that most of them were too young to know what she was referring to.