Andrew Cuomo must go — will Democrats push him out?
There is much to be said about the damning report on Andrew Cuomo’s serial sexual harassment released this morning by New York attorney general Letitia James — a report largely compiled by outside law firms, headed by former acting U.S. attorney Joon Kim. As Rob Ortt, the Republican leader in the state senate, asked in National Review last week, why is Cuomo still governor? The problem for New Yorkers and Democrats is the follow-up question: Where to go from here?
While we should never say never in politics, Cuomo seems extremely unlikely to resign, unless he must do so to stay one step ahead of a likely impeachment and removal by the state legislature. He is, in fact, likely to run for a fourth term in 2022 if he can avoid a serious primary challenge, and given the state’s partisan tilt, he would be favored against Long Island congressman Lee Zeldin, the likely Republican nominee. Is it possible to brazen this out? Democrats set a very longstanding template for doing so: Ted Kennedy sat in the Senate for 40 years after Chappaquiddick; Gerry Studds stayed in Congress for 14 years after a 420–3 censure vote for having a sexual relationship with an underage congressional page; Bill Clinton rode out his sexual-harassment and related perjury scandals in the White House; Alcee Hastings was elected to Congress after being removed from office for bribe-taking, and remained in office for 28 years until his death in April; Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax, and Mark Herring are sill governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general of Virginia, respectively, after the blackface scandals involving Northam and Herring and Fairfax’s being accused of sexual assault by multiple women. The list could go on.
In other words, if Cuomo is to go, he must be pushed. Who will do the pushing? The impeachment investigation, which extends beyond sexual harassment to cover corruption, Cuomo’s book deal, and his disastrous nursing-home decision, grinds on. The legislature approved millions of dollars in June (signed by Cuomo himself) for the massive investigation, which has reviewed tens of thousands of documents and contacted 75 potential witnesses so far. The state assembly judiciary committee convenes August 9 to consider next steps. Many Democrats have said that Cuomo should resign, but with their party controlling both houses of the state legislature (and Cuomo-appointed judges sitting with the state senate in any impeachment trial), it will require political will by Democrats to actually push Cuomo out, and to push along the impeachment soon enough that it doesn’t drag into the middle of the 2022 re-election campaign. That has been done three times in recent years by state legislatures to governors of their own party — by Republicans in Missouri and Alabama and Democrats in Oregon — but Cuomo is a much more prominent figure, and New York is a bigger stage. The sex angle may give cover to Democrats to do what they would not be willing to do over corruption or abuse of the pandemic powers. It was mistreatment of women that put Eric Schneiderman, the state’s previous Democratic attorney general, in an untenable position that led to his swift resignation, and it was a sex scandal that brought down Eliot Spitzer, who preceded Cuomo as both attorney general and elected governor.
If the legislature won’t take down Cuomo, it will fall to a primary challenger or, failing that, to Zeldin. That is where Letitia James, the state’s progressive AG, comes in. Today’s report concludes that Cuomo has violated multiple federal and state laws but does not recommend any legal action. James previously issued an equally damning report on the nursing-home fiasco. At some point, she is the most logically positioned Democrat to challenge Cuomo in 2022. Will she? And if not, who will? The worst option would be Bill de Blasio, New York City’s outgoing mayor and Cuomo’s hated arch-nemesis, who is maybe the only Democrat in the state so roundly unpopular and derided with every political faction under the sun that he could get rolled by Cuomo.