The Surprising Fall of Andrew Cuomo // Former NYS Governor David Paterson reflects on the legacy and resignation of his successor

If you asked New Yorkers only a few weeks ago who their lieutenant governor was, most of them would have been hard-pressed to name her. But the announcement by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo that he would be leaving office in two weeks due to several scandals concerning his personal behavior, immediately put all eyes on Kathy Hochul, who will be succeeding Cuomo.

Few people can understand what it is like to succeed—midterm—a governor who has fallen off his pedestal, but David Paterson, who spoke to Ami this week, is one of them.

David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954), a Democrat, served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer after a scandal forced him out. Paterson served out nearly three years of Spitzer’s term, from March 2008 to the end of 2010. He was the first legally blind person to be sworn in as a governor, and was also the first African American to serve as governor of New York.
Paterson held the office during the Great Recession, and he is credited for his sound leadership during New York’s financial hardship. But Paterson faced his own scandals. In the final year of his administration, in February 2010, The New York Times reported that he might have been involved in witness tampering in a domestic abuse case. At the end of that month, he withdrew his bid for a full term as governor.

In March 2010, the New York State Commission on Public Integrity asked Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate allegations that Paterson had solicited an unlawful gift of free tickets to New York Yankees games. He also faced allegations that he had lied under oath during an investigation into the matter.

Despite these alleged “twin scandals,” David Paterson remained in his post until his term concluded at the end of the year. In fact, he was not criminally charged in connection with the domestic abuse matter. But on December 20, 2010, the Commission on Public Integrity found that he had lied about accepting five free tickets to the World Series and fined him $62,125.

Nonetheless, Paterson has an insightful view into New York State politics, and has known Andrew Cuomo for a long time—and not always in a friendly way. I spoke with him about Cuomo’s resignation, his own experiences weathering scandals, and what he sees as the future of the state in the aftermath of this upheaval.

Even though it has already been a couple of days since Cuomo announced his resignation, all I can say is wow. I wonder if you feel the same way.

Yes, because I never really thought that the situation was going to produce that kind of result. There were other situations, such as how the governor handled the Mollen Commission, where some of the people are now speaking out about what was going on. And of course, there was the nursing home scandal and the book deal, unless he’s able to account for the time it took to write that book, and it was a large book with a lot of information. It was actually a very good book as reference material, but to what extent staff were used for it…

There’s really no overtime in politics, so it’s hard to calculate what was personal time and what wasn’t. If you’re working on a book, the best way to have done it would have been to have whoever was helping him take a leave of absence. You can take someone from your campaign to do it. There are ways to do it properly. But I didn’t think that this particular situation was going to go this far.

 

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