Nicole Watts will represent the Onondaga County Legislature's 9th District. Credit: Courtesy of Nicole Watts

Incoming Onondaga County Legislature Democrats will put forward legislature newcomer Nicole Watts as their candidate for chair of the legislature. 

All 10 members of the Democratic caucus will vote in January for Watts, according to a press release sent by the caucus. After gaining control of the legislature for the first time in decades, legislature Democrats are able to install Watts without Republican help. 

As chair, Watts is able to build the legislative agenda and appoint committee chairs, she said. She will also help with training and onboarding the new legislators before the new year begins. 

“I am excited, after months of knocking on doors and sitting in community meetings and listening to the people of my district and hearing the stories also from other districts, to be able to really address some of the challenges that our people are facing, and that they feel heard,” Watts said. 

The upcoming year will be the first time since the 1970s that the County Legislature has had a Democrat majority, according to a statement by the Democratic Caucus.

“The only reason that we won is because of the new legislators,” said Legislator Charles Garland, who is the senior Democrat in the legislature. “Their victories were a historic mandate for change, and Nicole’s election, or being chosen as chair, reflects that change that the voters wanted.” 

Hernandez will serve as legislature Democrats’ majority leader. After a historic win on the Working Families Party Line, this will be Watts’ first term in the legislature. She will caucus with the Democrats. 

The Republican Caucus generally chooses its leadership for the upcoming term in December, said Brian May, the current Republican majority leader in the legislature.

“We look forward to learning more about our Democrat colleague’s agenda in the near future,” said May. “We all have the County’s interests at heart, so I’m sure working together will be just fine.”

Watts was not the only person with a hat in the ring to be chair. Legislator Maurice Brown had previously expressed interest in the role, and Garland had put his name in during the early stages of choosing the role. Legislator Dan Romeo had also been interested in the role. 

The decision was made over a couple of hours on Thursday night, according to Romeo. He described “good, healthy, complex” discussions but declined to give further details on the decision-making process. “There wasn’t anything crazy. Nobody punching anybody in the face,” Romeo joked. 

Watts said that she was going to “stick with her caucus” in saying that they landed on candidates after much discussion. She did not give more information. 

“How it started out wasn’t how it finished, darling, I can tell you that,” said Garland. 

Garland and Romeo said they were “ecstatic” and “optimistic,” respectively, about the new leadership. 

Romeo expressed that Watts’ newness was not totally unique. 

“We’re all new. Even those of us that are already on the leg only have a couple years on the leg,” he said. 

The previous Democratic majority lasted just two years, according to Garland. The caucus is aware that this run could only be one year should Republicans flip the legislature back in 2026. They are planning to hit the ground running. 

Watts listed some of her priorities: housing, transportation, access to resources, workforce development, immigration, environmental protection and more. 

“The list is long,” she said. “This will be a journey to really identify what we can champion forward in year one and what we can stage up for hopefully future years to come.” 

Watts did not give specifics on her plans. She said she had “ideas” for who might be committee chairs, but declined to share them. She declined to say whether she was thinking of adding or changing committees. 

One of the most important things, Watts said, was making sure legislators understood what they could and could not do.

Asked whether the caucus would consider proposing changes to the county charter, she said that it was “always healthy to reevaluate things such as that” and that the legislature would be asking questions.

She said she was excited about Plan Onondaga. 

“I think we focus a reasonable amount of energy at the city level around transportation and connectivity, but a lot of workforce opportunities for people are not all housed within the city,” said Watts. She said that transportation needs to be expanded on the county level. 

Watts also spoke about creating policy protections for people’s personal data when it came to immigration enforcement. 

She said she was thinking about how the large amount of data the county has on its residents could be used. She said it would take an “extremely special extenuating circumstance” to convince her that the county should give up its residents personal data to immigration authorities. 

“I would invite them to try to make a case for it, but I believe our default needs to be regularly protecting our people,” she said. 

The county legislature needs to be “proactively planning” in case of another government shutdown in January, Watts said.

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Laura Robertson is a staff reporter covering Onondaga County. Prior to joining Central Current, she lived on the edge of the Bering Strait in Nome, Alaska, where she worked as a reporter for a year. She...