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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For 22 of the last 40 years, New York has had a governor named Cuomo. From 1981 to 1994, it was Mario Cuomo, Andrew's father of course. His record as governor was complicated but as a spokesman for liberal values, he was a star. His most memorable moment probably came at the 1984 Democratic Convention. Walter Mondale was the nominee, but it was Cuomo who won the most accolades for criticizing President Ronald Reagan's concept of America as a shining city on a hill.

Mario Cuomo: A shining city is perhaps all the presidency see from the portico of the White House in the veranda of his ranch where everyone seems to be doing well, but there's another city. There's another part of the shining city, the part where some people can't pay their mortgages, and most young people can't afford one. Where students can't afford the education they need and middle-class parents watch the dreams they hold for their children evaporate.

Brian Lehrer: 1984, Mario Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo grew up around Mario Cuomo's politics obviously, and by the time he was a teenager was involved in his father's campaigns. Andrew ran a homeless services nonprofit, and became HUD secretary, Housing and Urban Development Secretary under President Clinton, but lost his first bid to become governor in 2002 to the New York State Controller at the time, Carl McCall. When Cuomo withdrew from that race, he couched his defeat in the context of, believe it or not, having too many good ideas.

Andrew Cuomo: I also learned you can sometimes have too many good ideas. When you try to communicate too many ideas, sometimes you wind up communicating nothing. In part, the campaign did that, and we fell behind in the polls in July and August. It was my campaign and I am accustomed to leadership.

Brian Lehrer: Ending with he's accustomed to leadership, a sign of where he was headed in the future. Cuomo was finally elected governor in 2010. Like in his father's famous convention speech that we just excerpted from, Andrew Cuomo used his inaugural address to emphasize the importance of government and good government in people's lives.

Andrew Cuomo: The laid-off construction worker in Brooklyn who can't find a job and is fretting about what he's going to do to feed his family when the unemployment insurance runs out. This my friends cannot be underestimated and to make it actually worse, people then feel betrayed by their government. That they had problems, they had needs, they look to the government, and they assumed the government was going to be there to help them because that's what government was supposed to be all about. They look to the government and instead they find the government that is part of the problem rather than being part of the solution.

People all across the state when you mention state government literally shaking their heads, worse than no confidence. What they're saying is no trust. The words "government in Albany" have become a national punch line and the joke is on us. Too often government responds to the whispers of the lobbyists before the cries of the people. Our people feel abandoned by government, betrayed, and isolated and they are right.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew Cuomo from his first inaugural address in 2011. Considering the number of abuse of power scandals on multiple topics that Andrew Cuomo is facing today, that inaugural address riff sounds quaint, doesn't it? Not that he hasn't accomplished a lot of things and a lot of progressive things in office. Remember he signed a $15 minimum wage bill while Washington is still struggling to pass one. Tough gun control laws that Congress can't get enacted nationally. Same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court legalized it for the country. While Congress is stuck on energy policy to really reduce fossil fuel use to this day, Cuomo banned fracking statewide in 2014.

Andrew Cuomo: When the health commissioner of the State of New York who happens to be a doctor and happens to be a doctor with one of the best reputations in this state. When the doctor said to me, "I would not allow my kids and my family to live in an area that was doing high volume fracking," that was the answer to me because if the doctor is not going to let his kids live there, I'm not going to let my kids live there, and I'm not going to let any New Yorker's children live there.

Brian Lehrer: Andrew Cuomo in 2014. If he dropped out of the 2002 governor's race hanging it on having too many good ideas, he announced his resignation yesterday under the threat of an almost certain impeachment as something he was doing not to preserve his legacy as much as possible, but to help the people of New York, you.

Andrew Cuomo: I think that given the circumstances, the best way I can help now is if I step aside and let government get back to governing. Therefore, that's what I'll do because I work for you, and doing the right thing is doing the right thing for you because as we say, it's not about me, it's about we.

Brian Lehrer: With us now to talk about 22 years of governors named Cuomo and the news of the moment is New York State Public Radio Capitol Bureau Chief, Karen DeWitt. Hi, Karen. I know you're working around the clock so thanks for some time.

Karen DeWitt: Sure. Listening to those sound bites, I feel like you're replaying my life there. You know what, Brian? I was doing a little bit of counting up years this morning. If you count the time that Mario Cuomo was lieutenant governor in 1978, and include the time that Andrew Cuomo was attorney general elected in 2006, that's 30 years that there's been a Cuomo who has held statewide office. That's 30 years of the past 43 years. It goes without saying very, very big name in New York politics. What an ending, at least for the son.

Brian Lehrer: What do you think of the legacy of Mario Cuomo more than 25 years after he left office? Critics at the time said he was a great speaker, but his biggest action was to build a lot more prison cells. Remember that?

Karen DeWitt: Yes, I know. That sounds very negative, but I think I have to agree with that. He didn't have one big project that he was known for. Partly, he was hampered by all these years of budget deficit, there were recessions in those years, and there was anti-government sentiment. Remember at that point we had republican presidents, and then Bill Clinton came in in 1992 and it wasn't in to have big government projects. He did have very inspiring rhetoric. I remember as a young reporter, perhaps I was more naive in those days. He would give his speeches and I would say, "I feel good about being a New Yorker." It resonated as though he were sincere about it.

He had an ego, of course. Who doesn't who hold these offices? He was also humble. I think there was a lot more anti-Italian discrimination that he faced and that shaped who he was. He was skeptical of people being elitist. I was reading through his obituary in the New York Times, and he recounted that when he first got out of law school, he wanted to go to a big white-shoe law firm, and they wouldn't have them.

In fact, somebody even said, "Oh, you should change your name to Mark Conrad." That stayed with him. I think he always had a little bit of a chip on his shoulder about that. In some ways, many people thought he was a great man, and he could inspire you in that way. The son, while in his best moments was a hard worker, never really rose to that level.

Brian Lehrer: How did Andrew learn at his father's knee, do you think, either to be like his father politically or to be different?

Karen DeWitt: I think he's learned a lot because he managed his father, several of his campaigns, but Mario put him out as the bad guy, the bad cop. He was known as the hatchet man. That's where he got his nickname, the Prince of Darkness. In a way, I feel like Mario used Andrew's dark side to Mario's advantage so Mario could be the nice guy and his son would be the enforcer. I think that's how Andrew Cuomo started and as we've seen in the attorney general's report, that part of his personality didn't really change.

Certainly having a front-row seat to Mario Cuomo was just an amazing lesson in politics, I think for Andrew Cuomo or for anybody. Certainly, he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps, but he also was in competition with him, which is why he was hoping Andrew Cuomo was that he could run a fourth term and in a way best his father because Mario Cuomo was taken out by George Pataki after three terms.

Brian Lehrer: Right. He failed to win his selection to a fourth term. Andrew was certainly hoping for that for himself for next year. It's funny to think about the kid. He was practically a kid at the time being used as the bad cop, the enforcer, the Prince of Darkness when your father is the governor, and how so much stature. Andrew has of course had the reputation of being more politically power-based and less values-based than his father, and yet he accomplished those big-ticket, progressive agenda items that I recounted in the intro. How do you see the mix and how do you see it compared to his father?

Karen Dewitt: His father had some principles. For instance, Mario Cuomo was against the death penalty when there was a resurgence of popularity for the death penalty. In some ways, that contributed to his loss in 1994. I think Andrew Cuomo saw ideology as a weakness or something to hold you back. He didn't have to stick to some principle or stance. Andrew Cuomo was not that progressive. He was much more of a moderate Democrat. He was fiscally conservative.

Remember when he got in, he enacted a property tax cap. He's held state spending down to 2% growth per year. Then as the progressive in his party got more power, he signed onto a lot of these things. He wasn't for the $15 minimum wage when it was initially proposed. I remember him saying that it wasn't really very realistic, but he realized that that was frankly way to stay in power. If you want to put a good spin on it, that was what people wanted so that he was ready to change his views on things if it was politically expedient,

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any questions or comments about the through-line from Mario Cuomo's time in state government to Andrew Cuomo's 6464357280. I only found 22 of the years when I was thinking about it. Karen Dewitt who's more advanced at math than I am found all 30 of the years, including the years of Mario Cuomo as lieutenant governor. 6464357280 or a tweet at Brian Lehrer. Karen, Andrew was elected in 2010 and Mario died in 2015. Do you know if the father had the son's year on anything of significance or if they disagreed on much as Andrew was working out policy in those five years?

Karen Dewitt: I think both in some ways. Maybe any other parent-child relationship at times, I think Andrew wanted to listen to his father, but he also didn't always think his father had the best ideas. I think ultimately certainly he had a lot of respect for him. It was pretty dramatic. You might remember Mario Cuomo died on New Year's day in 2015 just after Andrew Cuomo gave his inaugural address for his-

Brian Lehrer: Second-term, yes.

Karen Dewitt: -second-term in office. It was like Mario was literally on his deathbed and he stayed alive until that happened, and then he was able to let go. That's another really dramatic moment in this dynasty,

Brian Lehrer: As we talk about generational change from Mario's generation to Andrews, as you heard yesterday, Andrew couched his fall from power at least partly in terms of generational change that he didn't see coming up from the next generation younger than him. He said this.

Andrew Cuomo: In my mind, I've never crossed the line with anyone, but I didn't realize the extent to which the line has been redrawn. There are generational and cultural shifts that I just didn't fully appreciate. I should have no excuses.

Brian Lehrer: Though he ends that by saying no excuses, how much do you think that's literally an excuse for behavior that he must have known was no longer acceptable if it ever was acceptable?

Karen Dewitt: I would say if he was saying that in 2016 or 2017, you could say yes, maybe he didn't know, he grew up in a different era but MeToo has happened. He signed some very tough anti-sexual harassment laws for New York state, he certainly knew what was in those bills. It's not like he wasn't educated by this. Plus he was supposed to be taking anti-sexual harassment training. There's some question of whether he actually did that or whether his secretary did it for him.

If he was just some ordinary person five years ago or even an ordinary politician, he might've gotten away with it. He lived this and championed those laws so there just isn't any way that he couldn't have known that this was not good behavior.

Brian Lehrer: Ibraham in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ibraham.

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin: Hi. Hey, Brian. This is Ibrahim Abdul-Matin. How are you?

Brian Lehrer: Good to hear from you.

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin: I just shared with your screeners that I just remember growing up, my dad, we would listen to NPR growing up and we listened to stories. Mario Cuomo would tell stories of growing up in Queens. I don't know if anyone else remembers this, but I just remember as a kid that it just made me feel like he was part of the community and he was our governor. That was the first thing that flashed in my head was that idyllic memory. Then all of a sudden fast forward to now where you have this terrible grotesque situation that feels really bad. In some ways for me, it was just real sad for that Cuomo name. Obviously, there's been wrongdoing, but it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Brian Lehrer: Ibraham, thank you.

Ibrahim Abdul-Matin: Just wanted to share that.

Brian Lehrer: Thani you very much. Don't be a stranger to these airwaves. Michael in Brooklyn who says he's a historian at CUNY. Hi, Michael. You're on WNYC.

Michael: Hi. I'm a historian at CUNY. One thing I would say is one of the through lines connects Andrew Cuomo to his father is they talk in some ways liberal on social issues, for instance, Mario Cuomo around the death penalty. They were both quite fiscally conservative. I think that New Yorkers seem to have forgotten that about Mario Cuomo. Karen Dewitt mentioned the issue of the prisons.

Particularly around CUNY, they were both awful in terms of funding for CUNY. Before Mario Cuomo was governor, he was involved as a lawyer in defending white people who were trying to keep low-income housing, affordable housing out of south Brooklyn and the Queen. There's a certain conservatism in both of them, I believe.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you for your call. Karen, what are you thinking?

Karen Dewitt: That's a good point. I'd forgotten about that, that 1970s court case which was one of Mario Cuomo's first cases. They were both more fiscally conservative, more moderate in some ways. As I said, I think Andrew Cuomo had to take on many of the progressive issues because he wanted to stay in office and that was the way things were trending in the Democratic Party.

Brian Lehrer: There are several categories of misbehavior chronicled in the attorney General's report. There's what he says he considered playful, but he now gets was hurtful. Then there's the more serious groping that he just flat out denies that he obviously would have known was wrong and says he didn't do it, and the alleged retaliation against at least one of the women for coming forward and the toxic work environment more generally. Does the investigation into those things stop now that he's resigned?

Karen Dewitt: No, it doesn't. In fact, Brittany Commisso who says that she was the victim of groping by Cuomo filed a criminal complaint. The Albany County Sheriff Craig Apple says this isn't going to stop. They're investigating it. He's meeting with the Albany County DA, David Soares every day. It's potential that Andrew Cuomo could be arrested. There isn't a criminal charge yet, but they're not stopping just because he resigned.

The retaliation, I think there's a civil suit I believe by the woman who was retaliated against, Lindsey Boylan. I'm not sure what about the other repercussions but certainly, there was violations of the state's public officer's law, the way the AG lays it out for Cuomo's top aides. The other thing is the assembly impeachment. They have not said that they're stopping the impeachment process at this point. We have to assume that they're going to go through with it, even though he's not there or won't be there.

Brian Lehrer: After you, we're going to have the number two member of the assembly, Majority Leader Crystal Peoples-Stokes. Listeners, I think she's going to be a great guest for a few reasons. One, she's from Buffalo and she can give us downstaters more insight into Kathy Hochul and maybe what kind of governor she's going to be.

We'll keep inviting your calls to tell someone from the Buffalo area what she might tell her colleague Kathy Hochul about your area in Queens or Brooklyn or Rockland or Suffolk County or wherever you are, but also because she said yesterday in one quote I saw, the assembly majority leader, Crystal People-Stokes, that the impeachment investigation is going to continue anyway. Karen, is that your understanding as a reporter? If so, where does it lead if Cuomo is already out of office?

Karen DeWitt: One thing it could lead to is a trial in the Senate, and Andrew Cuomo could be banned from ever holding a public office again. Obviously, they can't remove him since he's removing himself so that would be the biggest consequences of it. We haven't heard otherwise. I don't think that even if the assembly was inclined to end this impeachment because it's going to take up all of their time, they couldn't say it right now. It seems like based on the Monday's meeting of the impeachment committee, they've gone too far down that road, it would look bad for them if they said, "Oh, we don't need to look at this." I think they're stuck doing it actually.

Brian Lehrer: We tried Elliot in Manhattanville before and he wasn't there. Let's give him a second shot. Elliot, are you there?

Elliot: I am. Thank you, Brian. I'm not muted anymore.

Brian Lehrer: Good. It's good to know where the mute button on and off is on your phone. Go ahead.

[laughter]

Elliot: Yes. I was just musing on the fact that Andrew Cuomo developed somewhat of a reputation when he was the head of Mario Cuomo's campaigns for having a certain type of personality. I'd want to know what Kathy Hochul, what her personality type or her management style was when she was a county clerk or running a congressional law office.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Karen, how much do you know about that?

Karen DeWitt: She is a lot more warm and friendly than the governor. She's more ease with people, but she can be feisty too. 12 years ago when the idea of allowing undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses was first proposed by then-governor Eliot Spitzer, she was Erie County clerk, she was against it. She said, "If any immigrant comes in here, I'm calling immigration officials immediately." She can definitely be feisty, but nobody is like Andrew Cuomo. I think that goes without saying. I think she would be less into abusing her power and more into trying to work with others in state government to get all the things done that they're going to have to do.

Brian Lehrer: Let me sneak in one more quick history question before you've got to go. Kathleen in Astoria, you're on WNYC. Kathleen, we have like 15 seconds for you.

Kathleen: Hi. So pleased to speak with you today. I have a quick question. Andrew is saying that his behavior in the realm of sexual harassment was because he's from an older time. how about Mario? Did he ever have any--? I can't imagine Mario doing that to women the way that Andrew did. Do you know any difference?

Brian Lehrer: Maybe things that didn't become stories at the time. The things have come out about other older politicians that now look bad. I know you've got to go real quick, Karen. Do you know anything?

Karen DeWitt: I never heard that about Mario Cuomo and as a young woman covering him, I never experienced anything that would even resemble the things that Andrew Cuomo was accused of. I'll just leave it at that.

Brian Lehrer: Karen DeWitt, Capitol Bureau Chief for New York State Public Radio. Thanks for walking through history with us. I really, really appreciate it.

Karen DeWitt: I enjoyed it. Thank you.

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