A majority of state Assembly members said they will start impeachment proceedings against Gov. Andrew Cuomo if he doesn't resign over ...
A majority of state Assembly members said they will start impeachment proceedings against Gov. Andrew Cuomo if he doesn't resign over investigative findings that he sexually harassed at least 11 women, according to an Associated Press count.
At least 83 of the Assembly's 150 members have said publicly or told AP they favored initiating the process of ousting the third-term Democratic governor if he doesn't quit. A simple majority is needed to authorize an impeachment trial.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said in a statement on Tuesday that Cuomo 'can no longer remain in office' and that the state's legislative body 'will move expeditiously and look to conclude our impeachment investigation as quickly as possible.'
If the Assembly votes to impeach Cuomo, the state Senate could launch an impeachment trial 'in weeks,' Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris told the Associated Press.
At least 83 of the Assembly's 150 members have said publicly or told the Associated Press that they favored initiating the process of ousting Gov. Andrew Cuomo
Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay, left, urged Speaker Carle Heastie, a Democrat, to convene an emergency special session to vote to impeach Cuomo.
Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said the state Senate could launch an impeachment trial 'in weeks' if the Assembly votes to impeach Cuomo
Gianaris, a Democrat, said the chamber has been preparing for a potential impeachment trial for months.
'We'll be ready to go if and when the impeachment articles are sent over,' he said. 'It could happen very quickly.'
If Cuomo were to resign, Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul would become New York’s first female governor. Hochul would also take office and serve out the rest of Cuomo's term until 2023 if state lawmakers voted to remove him from office.
In order to remove Cuomo from office, the Assembly would need 76 votes to impeach Cuomo and send articles of impeachment to the Senate where a trial would be held. At least two-thirds of the state's 63 senators would then have to vote in favor of convicting and removing Cuomo from office.
Heastie would oversee the impeachment proceedings against Cuomo in the Assembly and Janet DiFiore, as chief judge of the Court of Appeals, could oversee the trial in the state Senate.
The Assembly includes 106 Democrats, 43 Republicans and one Independent. At least 40 of the 830 Assembly members who say they are ready to start impeachment proceedings are Democrats.
Assembly Democrats, who lead the chamber, debated virtually for hours Tuesday about whether to impeach the governor now, wait to see whether he resigns, or give the Assembly Judiciary Committee time to wrap up its wide-ranging investigation.
The Judiciary Committee is investigating topics from sexual misconduct to the Cuomo administration´s months long obfuscation of the total number of nursing home residents who died from COVID-19.
Some said the Assembly should vote for impeachment now, while others said the chamber should impeach Cuomo if he doesn't resign.
Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay urged Speaker Heastie, a Democrat, to convene an emergency special session to vote to impeach Cuomo.
Heastie, left, said in a statement on Tuesday that Cuomo 'can no longer remain in office' and that the state's legislative body 'will move expeditiously and look to conclude our impeachment investigation as quickly as possible'
New York Speaker Carl Heastie, who would oversee impeachment proceedings against Cuomo, released this statement on Tuesday saying an investigation was underway and would conclude 'expeditiously'. Critics say the legislature needs to act fast to remove the Governor, who has 'lost the confidence' of his peers
New York Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins is pictured
The tally reflects a governor plunged into a political deep freeze - a Democratic scion who has lost most, if not all, of his allies in the party establishment, just a year after basking in national attention as the voice of fighting the coronavirus.
Cuomo has denied that he made any inappropriate sexual advances and insisted the findings didn't reflect the facts. But while political pressure grew, so did the potential for criminal charges against Cuomo.
District attorneys in Manhattan, suburban Westchester and Nassau counties and the state capital of Albany said they asked for investigative materials from the inquiry, overseen by Democratic state Attorney General Letitia James.
James' investigation found that Cuomo - a former state AG himself - had violated civil laws against sexual harassment. Making no conclusions about whether he should be criminally charged, investigators left the door open for local prosecutors to bring cases.
'We are reviewing the deeply disturbing findings,' said Joyce A. Smith, the acting district attorney in Long Island's Nassau County. She pledged her office would 'thoroughly and expeditiously investigate any potential crimes' that happened there.
After James released her report Tuesday, Democrats from the statehouse to the White House called for Cuomo to go. President Joe Biden said the governor should resign, though press secretary Jen Psaki wouldn´t say Wednesday whether Biden wanted to see Cuomo impeached and removed from office.
'The president believes Governor Cuomo should do the right thing, resign, and leave space for future leadership in New York,' Psaki said.
And one of the governor's closest allies, New York Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs, declared that Cuomo 'has lost his ability to govern, both practically and morally.' Jacobs told Spectrum News he had tried privately to persuade Cuomo to resign but 'wasn´t making headway.'
Cuomo showed no signs of heeding such messages, saying that some episodes described in the report never happened, others were misconstrued or mischaracterized and the whole exercise was tainted.
'Politics and bias are interwoven throughout every aspect of this situation,' he said in a recorded video response.
James' investigation, conducted by two outside lawyers, painted what she called a 'clear picture' of a governor who touched or made sexually inappropriate comments to a series of women, many of whom worked for him. One is a state trooper whom Cuomo successfully sought to have assigned to his security detail.
While many of the allegations against Cuomo involve verbal comments, some women have also alleged that he gave them unwanted kisses or touches. One aide said the governor reached under her shirt and groped her breast at the governor's mansion in Albany.
The governor denied Tuesday that he ever inappropriately touched anyone and said that he never intended harm.
To date, Cuomo has rebuffed calls to step down and has moved ahead with plans to run for a fourth term in 2022.
As New York went through a harrowing coronavirus surge in spring 2020, Cuomo's daily briefings garnered him fans around the country and an International Emmy Award.
Casting himself as a tough-minded yet compassionate leader who steered the state through its biggest public health emergency in a century, the governor even wrote a book about it.
Now, that book itself is among the focuses of investigations into Cuomo, with James examining the role some of his aides played in producing it.
As complaints and investigations accumulated in recent months, Cuomo became an embattled but unabashed figure. He often still touts the state's handling of the pandemic despite now-rising infection rates amid a national surge in the more infectious delta variant.
He took office in 2011, following in the footsteps of his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, who served three terms in the 1980s and '90s.
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