Jamie Romeo has formally announced that she is running for the 136th State Assembly seat.
Assembly Majority Leader Joe Morelle, who is running to represent the 25th congressional district, currently occupies that seat.
Romeo says the loss of Congresswoman Louise Slaughter has shifted the scales in Monroe County and that she is happy to see not only more women running for seats, but working mothers. Her son is in elementary school.
"We need to be demonstrating more often that it does not take somebody that has any particular special set of circumstances. Anybody can serve, anybody can take this pursuit to serve their community and there are a lot of different ways to serve. I think its important that with local candidacies that we can also show others that they can see themselves as well. "
Romeo has been the chair of the Monroe County Democratic Committee since July of 2015.
She says that it is important to get someone into the state assembly who will fight for upstate.
"We’ve been able to see a lot of record investments into upstate with school aid and infrastructure, the 50 million for the ROC The Riverway, but all of that has come because we've had such strong leadership in Albany."
Romeo says she has spent almost a decade working as staff for local officials, so public service has always been very innate part of why she’s ever done any of the work she has done.