The rumor mill is swirling surrounding the resignation of Eric Massa. On Friday, the 29th District Congressman announced he was stepping down due to an ethics investigation involving sexual harassment. While some people are wondering what took place, the bigger question is who will take his place and when? Our Vince Slomsky reports.

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Other Southern Tier leaders say something needs to be done and soon.

"We need to try and focus our attention on whatever we can do to try to correct it as soon as possible, get somebody else to be in that seat as rapidly as we can," said Congressman Maurice Hinchey.

The governor may call for a special election to fill the seat and that could happen within 30 days of his decision. In this case, candidates would need to be chosen quickly.

"We have a number of very good people who are interested as candidates, in which I'm not free at this point in time to say who they are," said Cindy Emmer, democratic committee chair of Chemung County.

While we don't know all the answers to the questions surrounding this story, one thing we can say is voters in the district seem to be very disappointed.

"I was shocked because I voted for him and he was doing pretty good for me and now that he's going to resign right away, now I'm concerned," said Ann Bonsignore, a Horseheads resident.

"I'm sorry that he's sick and if that's why he resigned then I understand that, but the other circumstances, I think he should have stuck it out," said Linda Burdick, a Bath resident.

Exactly what those circumstances are, we don't yet know. However, the Ethics Committee is investigating and should release details once their findings are complete.

Democratic Party leaders in the 29th Congressional District say they've already begun the process of looking for a candidate in the case of a special election. They could have a name within the next two weeks.

We weren't able to get a hold of representatives with the Republican committee. At this time, the only known republican candidate is former Corning Mayor Tom Reed.