Brian Lees Running for Hampden County Clerk
        Senate Minority Leader Brian Lees is not ready to give up on public life just yet.
        He announced last January he would not seek re-election and it was thought he would be going into the private sector. But yesterday, he surprised many by announcing his candidacy for Clerk of Courts in Hampden County at a 1 p.m. press conference.
        The East Longmeadow Republican has been in the Legislature for 18-years and is best remembered as the Senator who moved that the Constitutional Convention be adjourned illegally on July 17, 2002 without voting on the Marriage Amendment that was before it. Since then, he has always voted to help gay marriage.
        To win the Clerks seat, he will need 1,000 write-in signatures at the GOP Primary. If he gets that many, he will either face Democratic incumbent Marie Mazza or Assistant District Attorney James Goodhines in the November General election.
        As for the seat he is vacating, there are three Republican candidates vying for that seat. They are Enrico John Villamaino III (East Longmeadow), Kevin Corridan (Springfield) and Ronald Cutler (East Long Meadow).
        Ronald Cutler has been a critic of the liberal policies of Lees, and the other legislators on Beacon Hill. He is the only one of the three who has been outspokenly against same-sex marriage, judicial activism, and the gay lobby at the State House.
        Villamaino has served as many years as an aide to Lees, promises a similar platform to his mentor. Corridan, who is currently the Hampden County prosecutor, is apparently utilizing the same “fiscally conservative-socially moderate” formula that some GOPers think they need in order to win.