This is why Carl Heastie was born.
This is why fate put him where he is.
What the governor did not have the character to do, the Assembly speaker must.
Andrew Cuomo has decided to continue New York’s nightmare. Carl Heastie can bring it to an end.
Yes, it is fraught with political risk. It is high stakes and high pressure, and if he doesn’t do it right, Cuomo will take his head off.
But courage is called for, and courage was demonstrated by the women victimized by the governor and vindicated by the attorney general. That courage must be honored and matched, and it must be turned into action. These women didn’t flinch, and neither must the speaker.
In the face of a withering report which confirms the accusations of 11 women, and the conclusion of impartial investigators and the attorney general that several federal and state workplace laws were broken by Andrew Cuomo, the governor responded with a pre-recorded video statement that was straight out of DSM-5.
Whether he’s a narcissist or a sociopath or a psychopath or just a lying son of a bitch, he stared into the camera and twisted and turned, telling some story that had him as the victim and as a great defender of women’s rights, claiming that his lawyer would refute all the allegations and that none of them were true and he’s the victim of politics and now he’s got to get back to work for the people of New York, fighting covid and sexual harassment various other evils.
All without a single tell. As smooth as silk.
When everyone with a shred of decency expected him to resign.
The world was tuned in to see the old man fall on his sword, to see him accept some responsibility, to see the page turn in the sometimes sordid history of New York. Instead we got a campaign commercial, and the nicest “eff you all” you’ll ever see.
And there he sits. A cross between a metastasized cancer and a stinking turd.
Which is where Speaker Carl Heastie comes in.
If the attorney general can’t charge him with a crime, and the governor can’t summon the decency to resign, the speaker has the power to begin the process of his removal.
For some months, the Assembly Judiciary Committee has been looking into possibly impeachable misdeeds committed by Governor Cuomo. That committee is scheduled to next meet on Monday.
That’s not soon enough, or enough enough.
Speaker Heastie has the authority to order the Assembly into session now, and he has the authority to allow a Resolution of Impeachment to come from the floor for the consideration of the body. The Judiciary Committee and its efforts thus far can be sidestepped and the Assembly itself can decide if it wants to bring an impeachment against the governor.
I hope it does, and I hope he will let it.
At that point, the Senate and its majority leader would hear the matter and ultimately decide on removal from office.
But the key is the speaker. The people’s branch of the legislature – the Assembly – has the somber power of initiating removal. It is not casually or politically done. But when circumstances demand, it must be earnestly taken up. And these circumstances most certainly do demand.
Large numbers of legislators from both parties have called for the removal of the governor. He not having the decency, class, character or integrity to remove himself, the Constitution of the State of New York has a mechanism for his appropriate removal.
And the keys to that authority are in the hands of Carl Heastie.
And so the state turns to him, the entire state, residents of all regions and members of both parties.
Not to settle a political score, or to advance a partisan agenda, but to wipe clean a slate, to take a stand, to root out an evil.
To say that it doesn’t matter what your name is or how much power you have, right is right and wrong is wrong, and you will be held accountable. And the truth and these women will be avenged.
And all of that lies now in the hands of Carl Heastie.
There is the power of one man, and the interests of 19 million people. The speaker is called to stand with the people, and to stand for what is right.
He has the sword.
And it’s time to use it.
It’s time to take Cuomo down.