By KAREN MATTHEWS and DAVID PORTER
The two top Democrats in New York’s legislature withdrew their support for Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday amid mounting allegations of sexual harassment and undercounting COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins became the first senior Democrat in the state to say the three-term governor should resign. Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie stopped short of demanding that Cuomo quit, but said in a statement that “it is time for the Governor to seriously consider whether he can effectively meet the needs of the people of New York.”
On Saturday, another woman who worked for Cuomo publicly accused him of inappropriate behavior, on the heels of other allegations in recent weeks.
“Every day there is another account that is drawing away from the business of government,” Stewart-Cousins said in a statement. “New York is still in the midst of this pandemic and is still facing the societal, health and economic impacts of it. We need to govern without daily distraction. For the good of the state Governor Cuomo must resign.”
Her push for his resignation came shortly after a Sunday press conference where Cuomo said it would be “anti-democratic” for him to step down.
“They don’t override the people’s will, they don’t get to override elections,” Cuomo said during a conference call with reporters when asked about members of his own party calling for him to step down. “I was elected by the people of New York state. I wasn’t elected by politicians.”
Cuomo said the next six months will determine how successfully New York emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. “I’m not going to be distracted because there is too much to do for the people,” he said, noting that the state must pass a budget within three weeks and administer 15 million more COVID-19 vaccines.
Asked about Ana Liss, who told The Wall Street Journal in a story published Saturday that when she worked as a policy aide to the governor between 2013 and 2015, Cuomo called her “sweetheart,” kissed her hand and asked personal questions including whether she had a boyfriend, Cuomo said such talk was “my way of doing friendly banter.”
He acknowledged that societal norms have evolved and noted: “I never meant to make anyone feel any uncomfortable.”
Liss told the Journal she initially thought of Cuomo’s behavior as harmless and never made a formal complaint about it, but it increasingly bothered her and she felt it was patronizing.
“It’s not appropriate, really, in any setting,” she said. “I wish that he took me seriously.”
Karen Hinton, a former press aide to Cuomo when he served as the federal housing secretary under President Bill Clinton, detailed an uncomfortable hotel room interaction she had with Cuomo in a story published Saturday in The Washington Post. Hinton, said that as she got up to leave, he gave her a hug that was “very long, too long, too tight, too intimate.”
She described the encounter not as sexual harassment but as a “power play” for “manipulation and control.” She was no longer an aide to Cuomo at the time.
Asked Sunday about Hinton’s account Cuomo said it was “not true” and noted that the two had been longtime political adversaries.
Cuomo’s workplace conduct has been under intense scrutiny in recent days as several women have publicly told of feeling sexually harassed, or at least made to feel demeaned and uncomfortable by him. The state’s attorney general is investigating.
Former adviser Lindsey Boylan, 36, said he made inappropriate comments on her appearance, once kissed her on the lips at the end of a meeting and suggested a game of strip poker as they sat with other aides on a jet flight. Another former aide, 25-year-old Charlotte Bennett, said Cuomo asked if she ever had sex with older men and made other comments she interpreted as gauging her interest in an affair.
Another woman, who did not work for the state, described Cuomo putting his hands on her face and asking if he could kiss her after they met at a wedding.
In a news conference last week, Cuomo denied ever touching anyone inappropriately, but apologized for behaving in a way that he now realized had upset people. He said he’d made jokes and asked personal questions in an attempt to be playful and frequently greeted people with hugs and kisses, as his father, Mario Cuomo, had done when he was governor.
