By Mark Scott
Washington, DC – First-term Congressman Eric Massa will not run for re-election.
The 29th district House member, whose district includes Cattaraugus and Allegany Counties, is leaving for health reasons. Massa was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1996, which has apparently returned. The Democrat won his 2008 election in a district long dominated by Republicans.
Massa held a two-minute conference call with reporters late Wednesday afternoon.
"I was briefly hospitalized, kept it private between myself and my immediate family," he said. "It was a very intense and personal experience, especially in light of having gone through this before.
"I'm a very salty guy, a very direct guy and I run at about 100 miles per hour, and my doctors have made it clear to me that I can no longer do that," Massa said.
Massa said he was announcing his decision now to give potential contenders time to run, and he criticized blog reports about harassment charges leading to his retirement.
"Those kinds of articles, unsubstantiated without fact or backing, are a symptom of what's wrong with this city," he said.