“President Joe Biden called on Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo to resign Tuesday, following a report that said Cuomo sexually harassed 11 women.”
On the national scene, Biden was joined by Pelosi, the Democratic governors of four northeastern states, and several Democratic congresspeople from New York.
If for no other reason, Cuomo might consider leaving before the humiliation of being removed. The NY State Assembly is now considering articles of impeachment, and that seems to have bi-partisan support.
Once upon a time I had a relatively favorable opinion of Andrew Cuomo. When he first took office he governed as a moderate Democrat. He seemed to understand the importance of keeping spending and taxes under control. NY state has a lot of millionaires and billionaires. One of the things about rich people is that they generally have an easier time relocating than the middle class. The rich already pay high taxes in NY, but if you raise the rates even higher more and more will relocate to friendlier states. Some years ago I read a statistic that New York City and State each get about 20% of their tax revenue from Wall Street. When the markets take a hit and bonuses are down the city and state have budget shortfalls. One thing the pandemic has showed us is that you don’t have to live in the NYC area to “work on Wall Street.” Financial firms moving more and more of their operations out of NY is inevitable. But higher tax rates will only accelerate the trend. But since the allegations against Cuomo surfaced he has become much more progressive because he needed to shore up his left flank. But it wasn’t enough.
Cuomo has a lot of enemies in NY State and most of them are Democrats. It was never part of his public image, but apparently he has made a habit of bullying elected officials to get his way. It’s not exactly a secret that Letitia James wants to be governor. Not that I think her report was dishonest in any way. Cuomo is refusing to resign for now. But as soon as noses are counted and there are enough votes to impeach and remove him he will be informed and will resign. His goose is well and truly cooked.
Of course if Cuomo was up for reelection this year instead of next I have to think there would be significantly fewer Democrats calling for his resignation. At least that would be the case if it was too late to substitute a different candidate. The thing about punishing politicians guilty of sexual harassment or worse is that they are rarely called to account if doing so will flip a seat to the other party. Both parties are guilty of it. So much terrible behavior by powerful men has been defended out of political expediency. But Andrew Cuomo is not up for reelection so he is fair game. I remember back in the early 90’s going to see political satirist Mark Russell live. At the time Mario Cuomo was dithering about whether he would run for president. Russell sang a song about the man in the political spotlight, Stan Lundine (then NY Lieutenant Governor). Russell has retired from public performances, but if he was still performing I am sure there would be a song about Kathy Hochul.
Well said. Nothing in politics happens by accident. I’m curious about the timing.
He should switch parties. The charges would make him a bullet-proof Republican, and they would do everything possible to protect him.
No honor among thieves, I see. The hair sniffer, and the one who insists on passing legislation and THEN seeing what’s in it are trying to take the moral high ground?!
It’s about time the liberals recognized (or at least admitted), what a corrupt, despicable POS Cuomo has always been. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving predator. A year ago, liberals were swooning over this guy like teenage girls.
Hey remember that time when he gifted NY State GOP a majority in the Senate so he could look bipartisan? Or all those times when he fucked over the MTA?
Us liberals sure do. Sure he did an OK job during the pandemic but it doesn’t really counteract him being a GOP friendly weasel the rest of the time.
Maybe he should switch teams. With the sexual assaults he would fit right in with the 600+ list of GOP officials who also can’t keep their hands to themselves.
Shame on Democrats for not being against Cuomo for his sexual harassment before they were aware of his sexual harassment. :/
All influential New Yorkers have always known Cuomo as corrupt, disgusting, hypocritical POS. Democrats and Republicans have used him to their advantage for years, way before he was governor. He went after Spitzer, who is a far better human being and governor, for pretty much what he himself is being accused of. Everyone knew about Jeff Epstein. Everyone knew about Harvey Weinstein. It’s only when they are caught that those who have been complicit come out of the woodwork.
Schumer, Cuomo, the Clinton’s etc and Trump were best friends, in each other’s pockets, well before they were political adversaries.
Steverino? You need to take your act somewhere else. Your credibility here is thoroughly blown. IMO, at least.
Roger, ssh! It doesn’t take credibility to turn out comedy gold. Come back Michele Bachmann, all is forgiven.
That Cuomo was known to be a bully is certainly true. The extent to which he is a bully was not known, as he bullied people into not speaking about it publicly.
Corrupt is debatable. Cuomo seemed willing to accept other’s corruption, like that of former State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, as long as Silver would help him advance his agenda. I’m not an expert on New York politics or on Governor Cuomo, but I don’t recall any serious allegations involving Andrew Cuomo and financial corruption.
Even when Cuomo was HUD Secretary under President Clinton and he stopped a lot of projects in the pipeline in order to promote his own projects, the general consensus was that he didn’t do so for any financial corruption motives, but for personal advancement in that he wanted to promote his own pet projects rather than having to promote the projects of his predecessor.
I hadn’t heard any allegations of sexual harassment involving Governor Cuomo prior to this, and it seems most New Yorkers were genuinely surprised as well.