Crisis, investigation and resignation
COURIER L 12 IFE, MARCH 5-11, 2021
OPINION
Machiavelli said, “Never
waste the opportunity
offered by a good crisis.”
While Machiavelli’s been
dead for nearly 500 years, the
sentiment remains true and
applicable. Why is it applicable?
Because during a time
of crisis, people are willing
to do and accept things they
wouldn’t have before and
won’t, after.
It’s why here in New
York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo
was granted extraordinary
powers to handle the COVID
crisis. Fortunately, it seems
that the legislature will repeal
his added powers soon.
That’s a welcome return to
normalcy. Unlike the pandemic,
Cuomo’s latest crisis
is self-inflicted, as three
different women have no accused
him of sexual harassment.
Based on polling and public
statements on whether or
not the governor should resign,
there is not — at least
not yet — a clear consensus
about what should be,
or what is next for Cuomo.
However, there is a consensus
that it should be full and
independently investigated.
In New York State, no
matter how clear the crisis,
that isn’t constitutionally
guaranteed.
To start the process, it
requires an official referral
from the governor’s office
authorizing Attorney General
(and Brooklyn’s own)
Tish James to investigate
and start the probe. Yes, a
governor is required, but
not obligated, to greenlight
an investigation of himself.
From there, the AG’s investigators
would compile a report
of their findings. They
can choose to make a criminal
or civil referral for prosecution,
ask the legislature
to consider sanctions or impeachment,
or bring it to the
Joint Commission On Public
Ethics (JCOPE).
I have confidence in AG
James — especially after she
reported on the governor’s
office’s handling of COVID
at nursing homes — to truly
investigate these serious allegations.
One doesn’t have
to be a lawyer, or state constitutional
scholar, to recognize
that too many hoops
have to be jumped through
in this process.
Fortunately, the state legislature
is moving in that
direction. Brooklyn Assemblymember
Robert Carroll is
the prime sponsor of a constitutional
amendment to
replace JCOPE and the Legislative
Ethics Commission
with an Independent Integrity
Commission. Those being
investigated wouldn’t be
choosing the appointees.
New York won’t become an
ethical paradise overnight,
but the rate of resignations
has been problematic for a
long time. The current crisis
and attention being paid to
Cuomo are forcing people to
think about this issue anew
with an opportunity to get
it right, this time with real
structural change. Those
who abuse their power can
and should be held accountable.
Mike Racioppo is the District
Manager of Community
Board 6. Follow him on
Twitter @RacioppoMike.
MIKE DROP
Mike Racioppo
The Ides of March
Andrew Cuomo has been
the most important fi gure
in New York state
politics for 13 years, ever
since Eliot Spitzer’s prostitution
scandal. He’s been governor
for the last 10 years. He
is in more trouble now than
at any point in that time.
This trouble is due to fallout
from his administration’s
cover-up of nursing home
deaths and Assemblymember
Ron Kim going public
with the governor’s threats
against him, but most especially
the accusations of relatively
young women — three
of them at the time of writing
— that the governor sexually
harassed them.
When Spitzer’s scandal
broke, Attorney General
Cuomo made clear the
authority to investigate
was with his offi ce. When
Spitzer’s lieutenant governor
David Paterson became the
state’s fi rst Black governor,
Cuomo out-maneuvered and
out-raised him, month after
month, until it became clear
well before the state Democratic
convention of 2010 that
Paterson had surrendered
and would not attempt to defend
his spot in the Executive
Mansion from Cuomo.
Cuomo has gathered
around him a top cadre of
loyal offi cials, a nomenklatura
presiding over apparatchiks,
if you will. Presumably
one of them illegally
leaked the personnel fi le of
his fi rst accuser, Lindsey
Boylan, at his request.
It is hard for me to imagine
Cuomo bowing to the demands
for his resignation. I
expect the end of his political
career, when it fi nally happens,
to be more like Scarface’s
or MacBeth’s than Al
Franken’s.
It’s hard not to see him
as a bit like Robert Moses
or Vladimir Putin, a fi gure
whose power is almost no-longer
dependent on popularity.
He’s still facing re-election
next year, if he decides to try
to hang on for a fourth term.
Let me share two imaginings
of what might happen,
essentially a fear and then a
fantasy.
What if Cuomo really took
a page from Putin’s playbook?
What if he handed the title of
governor over to Lieutenant
Governor Kathy Hochul but
made sure the real power of
the state, the deep state of the
Empire State, remained loyal
to him?
What if he then sits on his
massive campaign account,
rides out his political storms,
and returns to formal power
in a year or fi ve?
More likely, once he’s technically
out then he’s done for
real.
His fate is essentially in
the hands of Black politicians,
an ironic turnabout for
the former Secretary of HUD
whose great political misstep
to this point was running in
2002 against the fi rst African
American elected statewide.
The investigation is being
led by Attorney General
Letitia James of Clinton Hill.
The legislative leaders who
could decide to impeach him
are senator Andrea Stewart-
Cousins of Yonkers and assemblymember
Carl Heastie
of the Bronx.
What if another infl uential
African-American,
George Gresham, the head
of the state’s most powerful
union, SEIU 1199, convinced
the legislative leaders that
Cuomo needs to go? The Republican
minority would
likely go along.
He could tell Hochul, a
white woman from Western
New York, that she would be
governor, and then she would
see it happen. Then maybe
next year Gresham and the
legislative leaders could turn
on Hochul and replace her
with Tish James. It would be
a fi tting revenge of sorts for
David Paterson.
Nick Rizzo is a former Democratic
District Leader and a
political consultant who lives
in Greenpoint. Follow him on
Twitter @NickRizzo.
WORDS OF
RIZZDOM
Nick Rizzo
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