How good are voters' memories? The outcome of the New York City mayoral election may hinge on how much they remember of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo's corruption-filled past.
Cuomo is hoping to rewrite his own history and run for mayor. He got a boost Monday when a key Democrat, Rep. Ritchie Torres, called on Cuomo to join the race. "The city is in crisis," he said." Torres said he isn't interested in "relitigating" what forced Cuomo to resign in disgrace in 2021, though Torres was among those who demanded he step down.
Torres may not want to relitigate, but Cuomo's still in hot water; he got a setback last week, when New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled that the state's ethics commission is constitutional and can proceed with its investigation of a $5.1 million book deal Cuomo made in 2020. He may be forced to relinquish the money.
Cuomo is accused of personally profiting from disaster by having his staff write a book touting his leadership skills during the crisis months of March, April and May 2020, when nearly a thousand New Yorkers a day, on average, were dying from COVID-19.
The book, "American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic," was released in October 2020 and soared onto the New York Times bestseller list. Then an avalanche of scandals the following spring tarnished Cuomo, killing the book's market value.
By then, the state Assembly, controlled by Cuomo's own party, had initiated an impeachment inquiry. Cuomo's misuse of state resources to cash in on the book was sufficient grounds for impeachment, a drastic step taken only once before in the state's history, when former Gov. William "Plain Bill" Sulzer was impeached and removed in 1913.
But there were more grounds.
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The impeachment inquiry, conducted by the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell, found "overwhelming evidence" that Cuomo had sexually harassed a female state trooper and several female staff. The inquiry also found that Cuomo had mandated returning COVID-19 hospital patients to nursing homes while they still tested positive, as well as fudging the soaring death toll that resulted.
On Aug. 3, 2021, state Attorney General Letitia James, also a Democrat, issued findings supporting sexual harassment charges from 11 women. A few days later, Cuomo resigned as governor.
Fast-forward to this year's mayoral race. New York City voters, desperate to halt the crime and chaos destroying their quality of life, are seeking an alternative to the far-left candidates vying for the job.
To explain endorsing Cuomo, Torres pointed to Queens Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani, a member of the Jewish-bashing Democratic Socialists of America, who is also seeking the mayoralty, and said, "We're confronting a level of extremism unprecedented in the history of New York."
On Feb. 14, the Staten Island Democratic Party also preemptively endorsed Cuomo. "Andrew Cuomo gets Staten Island," said party chair Laura LoBianco Sword. "He knows the needs of the outer boroughs."
Two days later, the Asian Wave Alliance, tired of leftists' extreme positions, told the New York Post that it's encouraging Cuomo to run, calling him "the most common-sense candidate."
"Common-sense" or corrupt? As Cuomo's candidacy becomes a certainty, New Yorkers will need to take a hard look at why Cuomo was deemed unfit for public service by his own party in 2021, and what, if anything, has changed about the man.
Sword said Cuomo "is the only proven leader with the track record of results and resolve to both navigate attacks from Washington and properly address the issues of corruption and deteriorating quality of life our city faces today." Corruption, Cuomo knows. But Sword's conclusion suggests how thin the moderate side of the bench is in the Democratic Party.
On Feb. 15, H. Carl McCall, former state comptroller, issued a formal letter urging Cuomo to run. But that's hardly a sign Black Democrats are united for Cuomo. McCall is 89 years old and far from the party's standard-bearer.
The nonprofit group United for a Better Tomorrow already is running radio ads claiming that Cuomo is nothing but a fair-weather friend to Blacks, citing the times he deprecated former President Barack Obama and McCall.
Last September, Rep. Elise Stefanik grilled Cuomo during a congressional hearing over the "multimillion-dollar" advance on his self-glorifying book. She asked him to stand up and apologize to the families in the room whose loved ones died from COVID-19 in the nursing homes. Cuomo refused.
"There is a reason you are the former governor of New York State," she seethed. "You will never hold elected office again."
That depends on how much New York voters choose to remember.
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