New York’s next governor, Kathy Hochul, promised a clean break from the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday, in her first public remarks since he announced his resignation in the face of an impending impeachment effort.
Hochul said she would not employ any Cuomo aides who were identified as taking unethical actions in New York Attorney General Letitia James’s report on sexual harassment allegations involving the governor. Hochul also indicated that she would be more transparent than Cuomo, in response to a question about the state’s response to coronavirus outbreaks in nursing homes.
“I think it is pretty clear, and it’s no secret, that we have not been close,” she said of her relationship with the current governor.
Cuomo announced Tuesday that he would resign from the governor’s office on Aug. 24, making the announcement one week after an extensive investigation commissioned by James found he harassed 11 women, including his own office assistants.
In her remarks, Hochul, who will be the state’s first female governor, made clear that she did not feel she needs 14 days to prepare for the office, saying, “It’s not what I asked for.” But she said she would take advantage of the time by preparing to appoint her new staff and a new lieutenant governor.
Some Cuomo advisers said they were perplexed by his decision to stay in office for an additional two weeks after announcing he was stepping down, and a number of his critics feared he would use the time to undermine his successor or exact revenge on political opponents.
[How Cuomo’s flexing of political power became his undoing]
Cuomo had no public schedule on Wednesday, and his team has declined to say whether he plans to do any events. “It’s to ensure an orderly transition at this critical time where the key decisions still remain on covid, the delta variant and other significant challenges facing the state,” said Rich Azzopardi, a spokesman for the governor.
Hochul and Cuomo spoke by phone Tuesday — the first time they had communicated in months, advisers said.
Hans Pennink
AP
New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul addresses reporters Wednesday at the state Capitol in Albany, N.Y.
The incoming governor has been making a round of calls to civic and business leaders, asking questions about staffing and setting up meetings, people who have spoken to her said.
Cuomo still faces criminal investigations into his conduct by prosecutors in several counties, as well as an ongoing federal investigation by the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn into the administration’s handling of nursing homes during the pandemic.
The New York attorney general is separately probing whether the administration misused public resources when it provided Cuomo relatives and other well-connected New Yorkers with preferential virus testing and when aides helped him write a book last year that netted him more than $5 million.
Hochul declined to say whether she would consider pardoning Cuomo if he is convicted of criminal offenses after he leaves office.
“It is far too premature to even have those conversations,” she said.
Leaders of the New York Assembly have not yet signaled whether they will move forward with the impeachment effort. Even after he leaves office, Cuomo could be barred from holding a state office in the future with a majority vote by the Assembly and a conviction on impeachment charges by a two-thirds vote before the state Senate.
Hochul, a centrist Democrat from the western part of the state, has served as lieutenant governor to Cuomo over two of his three terms in office. She said she would deliver an address to the state laying out her vision shortly after she takes office later this month, and said she remained committed to the policy agenda that Cuomo had pushed in office.
“I was out there fighting in the streets to raise the minimum wage. I was out there fighting for paid family leave. I’ve been the champion of policies to eradicate the specter of heroin and opioid abuse, something that has touched my family personally,” she said. “I’ve been out there making the announcements on affordable housing, clean energy, economic development. So that will continue. Those policies will continue and even be more enhanced.”
But she promised the combative and toxic work environment that Cuomo oversaw in the government would end.
“No one will ever describe my administration as a toxic work environment,” she said.
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