After nearly 30 years in office, Rep. Ed Towns (D-N.Y.), who sits on the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has decided not to run for re-election in a June primary against New York State Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and New York City Councilman Charles Barron. The Wall Street Journal calls Barron a "wild card" because of his black-nationalist-inspired politics.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Rep. Ed Towns’s decision not to run for re-election, announced in statement Monday morning, sets up a likely two-way primary for his heavily Democratic Brooklyn congressional seat between a firebrand city council member and a more moderate assemblyman.

Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, from the Fort Greene neighborhood, had posed the greatest threat to Towns, with $400,000 in the bank at the end of March and a slew of important labor endorsements. Towns, on the other hand, had just over $250,000 at the end of the month, and the longtime congressman had been sending mixed messages about whether he intended to run 


City Council Member Charles Barron, from the Brownsville neighborhood, is something of a wild card. He has a following in a crucial part of the district, but his unique brand of black nationalist-inspired politics will likely be a turn off in other parts 


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Read more at the Wall Street Journal.