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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. This is quite a moment for both politics and policy in New York State. You know about the growing storm around Governor Cuomo. The New York Times has an article today about a third woman in the last week, accusing the governor of inappropriate behavior toward her, this time not an employee, as you probably heard by now, but this time in public with photos taken at the time.

Last night, Long Island congresswoman Kathleen Rice, notably a moderate Democrat, not from the more hostile to Cuomo progressive wing, became the latest Democrat to call for the governor to resign, and the first member of New York's Democratic congressional delegation. This is also the month when most of the big things that get done in state policy get done. The month of March every year, in the weeks before the annual April 1st state budget deadline.

So many things are on the table this year, from taxing the wealthy and cutting services to cover state revenue losses from the pandemic, bills that would legalize, recreational marijuana sales and new forms of gambling, nursing home reform, now that the public is paying attention to some deadly systemic problems there and so much more.

Yesterday, with all the scandal related uncertainty Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie beat a hasty retreat, and postponed policy sessions that were scheduled. Remember that the November election gave Democrats a super majority, that is a veto proof majority over the governor in the State Senate and we are waiting to see how Senate progressives will try to flex that muscle.

With all of that going on, with us now is Karen DeWitt, capital correspondent for New York State Public Radio, meaning she reports on Albany goings-on for all the public radio stations in the state. Hi, Karen, thanks for coming back on your downstate outpost.

Karen DeWitt: Yes, sure, Brian. That's a long list of things that are under consideration that you just named. Normally, they would be uppermost in my mind, but I have to confess they have not been. In addition to the scandal going on with the governor, don't forget, there's also a little bit of a pandemic going on, so if people were unfocused about budget and state policy before this, but this is just an intensified distraction.

Brian: Well, let me ask you that the distraction, why did Speaker Carl Heastie cancel yesterday's assembly session?

Karen: Well, I did ask his spokesperson and he said that they were going to have a very lengthy private Democratic conference. That's significant, because that's where the members know-- at times, they don't even allow staff into these meetings. That's where members hash out whether they have differences, or how to decide how to go forward. I think that that's actually pretty significant that they're talking.

Another thing that's been significant is I know that a lot of people have wanted to talk to Senate Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and she's also been very quiet. I'm really wondering if this is the calm before the storm, if they're trying to decide. As we just mentioned, they all need to work together on the budget, but I think that they're a little bit of a loss as to how to proceed here.

Brian: We'll get into the newest details regarding Cuomo himself and the investigation. There's a little news out of Attorney General James' office about that, but do you see the Cuomo scandals as having any impact on policy so far, either things that his own office is or isn't doing, or the way things are going in the legislature with so many hefty policy items having to be dealt with by the end of the month?

Karen: Yes, well, first of all, I would say it's a little bit more difficult for us reporters to cover the capital these days, because everything's closed down. A lot of times, we would get our information through gossip, something you'd hear in the elevator, or staking out. What would be happening today normally, is reporters would be staking out the legislative leaders because they are in Albany, but you're not allowed to be that close together anymore. It's a little harder to get information about exactly what's going on and what they're doing.

One thing that I will say about state budget, a reason why people have it really been getting into the nitty gritty details is New York has been waiting for a federal bailout, and hoping that with President Biden, a Democrat, in office that Congress would come to the rescue with our combined two-year $15 billion deficit. It does look like that is starting to come together that New York's probably going to get about $12.7 billion. That's been part of the delay in making any big decisions about spending, or what new revenues they should raise, or what cuts to make, so there's been that stasis, too.

I think, I might have lost track, but I think in the next week or so they are finally going to do that federal relief package, right? That will break the dam in terms of deciding well, how much is left of the budget hole that we have to fill?

Brian: How much, if at all, do you think policy goals are a reason for pressure on the governor right now? Obviously has to be held accountable for his behaviors which stand on their own, but also, either from the right or the left with the legislature, how much of the reaction to what's being revealed about the governor is intended to weaken him to help get anything passed or anything blocked, for that matter, for the flurry of bills coming this month?

Karen: Well, that's a good point, because in his 10 years in office, he's consolidated near total control over a lot of things in Albany, including the budget. The budget process, as you mentioned, a lot of policy is put into that, and he does come to it in a weakened position where the legislature may be able to push some things that they want more than the governor, and it's going to be interesting to see that play out in the next few weeks.

Particularly, a lot of Democrats in the legislature do want to impose new taxes on New York's wealthy. They talk about the 120 billionaires in New York, they've counted them, who have made about $80 billion combined since the start of the pandemic, and they would like to impose new taxes on them. Governor Cuomo has been resisting that, saying, "The rich will leave the state. I'm worried about that. This isn't the right time." He, certainly that position, it's going to be harder for him to maintain that position in the face of legislative opposition now, because people are starting to see he has much less power.

Brian: Why does he have much less power? Connect those dots for people who don't follow Albany politics closely, do you see him as actually having less sway over the legislative process than he would, if none of this were swirling around him and why?

Karen: Well, he's under federal investigation for the nursing home policy, the attorney general is going to investigate him for personal behavior, alleged sexual harassment. Honestly I think any other politician other than Cuomo would probably resign this week over this stuff, let alone be weakened or unable to even think about state policy. He's weakened and he has the reputation of being a bit of a bully.

He's made a lot of enemies over the years, and in fairness, any governor who's been in office for three terms has lots of enemies at this point, so he doesn't have a lot of goodwill. There aren't people in the legislature who're going to say, "Give him a break. He wants this policy. Let's let him have it." That isn't how it's going to work.

Brian: Listeners, your calls continue to be welcome on any aspect of the Cuomo scandals. All points of view continue to be welcome, as clearly people have different opinions about what to think and what to do about any of it, or you can call and talk about the policy debates taking place in Albany that will need to be resolved this month, or the intersection of all of the above. 646-435-7280, your opinions welcome, your questions for Karen DeWitt, welcome, 646-435-7280, or tweet @brianlehrer, as some of you are doing right now.

Karen, in a minute, I'll read you a tweet that has already come in that reflects some of what we've been hearing from callers over the last few days. Let me stay on this intersection between policy, and the scandals at the moment, for the moment, and one of those issues is whether to remove some of the governor's emergency powers for the duration of the pandemic. Is that something that might happen quickly, and what would be the implications for the public as we manage around what the governor has been opening and closing, like schools and businesses, and other things that really affect people's daily lives?

Karen: Well, honestly, I thought that the emergency powers would have been removed a couple of weeks ago. Certainly the Senate Democrats were pretty hot to do it, but actually there's been opposition among Democrats in the assembly, and they've talked about putting a 10-member commission and maybe the governor could enact some emergency regulations, and they would just review them later.

It seems to have gotten weaker and weaker, and now this week, we're just not hearing anything about it. I would have thought that that would be the first thing, but maybe the lawmakers are thinking as you just mentioned, Brian, logistically, "Well, are we going to have a debate on whether schools should be closed down, some 10-hour debate on that or maybe we should just leave it to the governor?" Those emergency powers do expire, I think at the end of April, sometime around April and the budget deadline. They're going to be expiring naturally in about a month or so anyway.

Also, there are emergency powers that any governor has under state law, if an emergency is declared, it's just that this governor was able to get powers to really just suspend or change any state law at will. There is some limited emergency powers that they could still function under, even if these were taken away. Yes, that momentum has slowed the legislature and like I said, it's a black hole right now, because we can't really physically get there and talk to them. If they don't want to answer our calls, they don't have to, it just seems like they're really just deciding what their next step is right now.

Brian: Another issue on which the scandals in policy connect is nursing home reform. Of course, the original issue that started all this for the governor was the deaths of around 15,000 New Yorkers in nursing homes from COVID and how much the governor's policy decisions may have contributed to that horrific number. That led to undercounting that number publicly, which led to bullying Assemblyman Ron Kim into trying to help them downplay the undercount, which led to women coming forward to say, "He not only bullies, he sexually harasses." Is that more or less the sequence of events that you see as having put the governor in his current position?

Karen: Yes, that actually is a good sequence of events. A lot of attention, and rightly so, has been to hiding the death numbers. The attorney general's report which was released in late January, another thing that was pretty stunning in it was going over the conditions at the nursing homes, and how terrible they were. Some of those things read like, people would just create a section in the 1800s. They said they were still doing group dining, they would put a sick person with COVID in a room with another person who had COVID.

It just seems like the nursing homes were not all that well-run or managed to begin with going into this pandemic.

They also found that nursing homes that had more of a higher staffing ratio had fewer deaths. That's something that is being pressed, at least by the Healthcare Workers’ Union 1199, and the Nurses Association, and some lawmakers that we should have in the state budget rules, that nursing homes have to have more staff. Of course, that costs money, and nursing homes are very dependent on Medicaid for their residents. The Medicaid reimbursement rate has been relatively low in New York. Governor Cuomo's been pretty steadfast about his self-imposed 2% per year spending cap, and one of the things that has suffered under that is the Medicaid rates.

There is a real money squeeze in these nursing homes as well, which is a larger issue. Certainly in the budget, we'll see some nursing home reform and that definitely is a policy that's been driven by this. The other sequence of events that you just mentioned, that really right now seem like they're spiraling out of control.

Brian: An issue that Assembly Member Kim had raised was nursing home owner campaign contributions to Cuomo, allegedly leading him to get a nursing home lawsuit immunity provision through the legislature last year, which he did. How convinced are you as a reporter, that there's evidence, it was a favor to donors who own the nursing homes, rather than something he felt was the right thing to do?

Karen: I can't really say. That's something that a federal prosecutor would have to look at, I think, or a prosecutor, and this has always been an ongoing thing in Albany, and with a lot of politicians. They get donations, sometimes the timing seems suspicious, a donation comes and then something favorable is passed in law for that group. Without anything written down in paper saying specifically, "Hey, thanks for the check. Now, I passed this law that will make you rich." You can't prove it, so I wouldn't want to go there and say that, but that's certainly something that has been an issue for a long time.

Brian: Why do we have for-profit nursing homes in New York state when we don't allow for-profit hospitals?

Karen: That's a good question. I actually have been wanting for the last month to have time to look into that more. It's a trend that has started many years ago, about a third of the nursing homes were for-profit. Now, two thirds of them are for-profit. We've seen a lot of upstate counties who had public nursing homes, sell them to for-profit companies because they felt like they just were not getting enough money back for Medicaid to be able to run them, they were draining the county budgets. That's been a trend as well in terms of it's just they're expensive to run, and not everybody wants to pay for them.

Brian: They don't abolish for-profit nursing homes in the reform bill, I gather, even though we've had a number of legislators on the show complaining that we have for-profit nursing homes.

Karen: Well, without knowing that much about the inner workings, I think it'd probably be disruptive to just do it in one fell swoop. Maybe they should be regulated a little better. That's what some of the more shocking parts of the attorney general's report, showed how they'd been operating. It just looked like they weren't being regulated correctly at all.

Brian: All right, I wanted to spend these first 15 minutes talking about all the policy implications, and even just parallel policy items, with things like nursing home reform, which is such a life and death issue, on the table. I don't want these things to get lost, as everybody focuses on the governor's scandals, per se. Although, of course, they have implications for people's lives, too, and the quality of people's lives when we're talking about bullying and when we're talking about sexual harassment, certainly.

I wanted to spend these first 15 minutes on the intersection of what's going on with the governor and what's going on with policy in this crucial month for policy, as March always is for, in this case, 2021. We're going to take a break and we'll continue with Karen DeWitt, capital correspondent for New York State Public Radio, and we'll focus more specifically on the new developments with the governor, and we'll take your phone calls. Stay with us.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer, WNYC with New York State Public Radio capitol bureau chief, Karen DeWitt. You hear her voice on the station all the time reporting from Albany. She does that for public radio stations around the state. She's with us one-on-one this morning, to talk about all these events going on in the state capitol right now, regarding the governor and regarding policy.

Karen, the latest accusation against the governor comes from 33-year-old Anna Ruch, you tell me if I'm saying her name right, R-U-C-H. According to the New York Times, which interviewed her, she was not an employee of the governor, according to the Times, but says she met the governor for the first time at a wedding they were both guests at in 2019. What's the latest on what she is saying and photos she's showing from that night?

Karen: There's a picture, too, of him copying her face in his hands and her looking rather uncomfortable about it. I think it's just the drip, drip, drip, as more women come out, and Charlotte Bennett, who was one of the ones who bravely talked to the New York Times on Saturday, has put the call out. "Look, if you feel like something happened to you with this guy, this is a time to talk. We'll respect if you don't want to, but this is the time because we will support you."

There is strength in numbers. A lot of times what happens in these situations with women as you think, "I'm the only one," so you don't say anything maybe other than to family members. You think it's embarrassing, you take the shame upon yourself. Knowing that there's other women who are out there speaking right now, this would be the time. If there are more women who have incidents where they felt uncomfortable, then I think that they probably be speaking out now. It's very hard for a politician to survive in this atmosphere, because that fuels the story. It makes it the top of the news cycle, the next morning, the next evening, or constantly on the news channels.

It's just feeding this story. It's very difficult for it to go away. The governor did try to give a blanket admission of perhaps behavior that he was only joking, but it was misunderstood, because he knew that more of these cases are going to come out, but really, so far nobody's buying that response.

Brian: He had said, banter, that was meant to be joking, but he never inappropriately touched anybody. This is about inappropriately touching her. She was 31. He was 61 at the time of this wedding, and she says he touched bare skin on her back and then took her by the face, and asked if he could kiss her, that holding her face with both his hands is the thing that was caught as a photo by a friend, and published, and the whole interaction was seen by several people at the wedding in its entirety. This was basically out in public in that setting. Here's a tweet from a listener kind of defending the governor that says, "If there are pictures of Cuomo in public, did he really do something wrong?"

Karen: Well, I think it shows an unawareness of his part certainly. It is worth pointing out, he's not so far being accused of sexually assaulting anybody, which is worse, like our former president, Donald Trump, who's been accused of assaulting about two dozen women.

What's significant about this, this is 2019. It wasn't 2009, it wasn't 1999. This was after the Me Too movement. This was after New York and Cuomo took a lot of credit for this, passing new laws to protect women against harassment. Certainly, it's mostly in the workplace, but I think that would carry over to some social behavior. It's not like there was no awareness that maybe you should not behave this way to a perfect stranger at a wedding. I think most people, probably just common sense, wouldn't do that. I'm not being judgmental here, but I'm just saying in this time, there's a lot more awareness, so that just makes the behavior more curious.

Brian: Ms. Ruch has come out and said how uncomfortable it made her feel. One of her friends who witnessed the whole thing said afterwards, "Are you okay?", as if something really inappropriate had happened to her. Before we go to the phones, Karen, our callers have been very mixed on this whole set of issues so far, I think mostly generational, but not entirely, but mostly generational.

Some people don't want to see someone they consider basically a good and competent actor during the emergency, which is still ongoing, forced out over things, some of the callers consider minor. Like perhaps this touching of a face and back in public will be perceived as it was by that first Twitter user NS-something, cringe-worthy, but not any kind of harassment really in some people's perception.

I'm curious how much a divide, you're getting a sense of in public opinion, since you cover the whole state, and how much of that is changing with each new revelation? I realize it's hard in the pandemic, and it's not like you're driving around to Onondaga County and Herkimer County, and everywhere else in New York, but can you get a sense of public opinion, and whether it's changing, and whether it's divided by generation or any other way?

Karen: Well, actually, a lot of people do write me during the pandemic, because I think they're home and they have more time to parse my news reports. I've had my grammar corrected at times because people have a lot of time on their hands.

Brian: Watch that, Karen.

Karen: I have gotten reaction from some listeners who are saying, "Why is the media suddenly--", and this is starting with the nursing home stuff, "Why is the media being so mean to Cuomo? I trust him, he's led us through a lot of this, why are you turning against him now?" People really, I think would like to see him as a hero. It's really hard to see this after a lot of people put their trust in him, to see these questions being raised. As a member of the media, you have to raise them, but I think it is hard for people to wrap their heads around.

Suddenly, everybody loved him, and now he can't do anything right, and all these horrible allegations are coming out. I do think it's difficult. People don't want to see it, and they're certainly going to blame the media for it. You just have to try to be fair about it, you can't suppress these things. As I just said, this incident happened in 2019, one of them happened allegedly in 2020, one of them happened in 2017. This isn't some ancient history that's being dredged up about when maybe a man might have not known any better how to act. These are current events. I think that there has to be more accountability there for it.

Brian: Serena in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Serena. Serena, you there? Do I have the right line? Serena, can you hear me? Do I have the right name?

Lina: Lina?

Brian: Oh, yes. Hi, it's you. You're on the air. Did I say your name wrong?

Lina: [laughs] Yes. It's Lina, L-I-N-A.

Brian: I apologize, Lina. Hi, there. Thank you for calling in.

Lina: Okay. Thank you for taking my call. What I want to say is that I don't support, as a woman, that kind of behavior, but right now, the situation that we are in, does not allow us to get rid of him. There is an old Spanish saying, which I believe is Arab that says that "When you are crossing the river, you don't change your horse." Right now, New Yorkers, to me, are crossing the river.

Brian: Lina, thank you very much, and very succinctly put. Go ahead, Karen.

Karen: The caller makes a good point, and this is something that I've worried about as covering this administration. The governor, he pretty much has run this pandemic with about five top aides. People might be aware of this story in the New York Times that showed at the Department of Health, all of the top epidemiologists and infectious disease experts have quit over the last few months, claiming that Cuomo doesn't listen to them, he makes all the decisions himself.

Whether you think that's a good idea or not, that is the reality right now. It would be difficult for him to suddenly disappear. Would his aides be able to stay on and work in the same way with Kathy Hochul, the lieutenant governor should the governor resign? That is a good point. We're in a situation where the governor has been running this thing almost single-handedly. Certainly, you'd have to worry about things like the vaccine rollout, which isn't going all that well, to begin with, would it be worse if there was nobody at the top? That is a complicating factor here. These aren't ordinary times.

Brian: Lina says don't change horses as you're crossing the river. Carol in Manhattan, let's see what you have to say. Hi, Carol, you're on WNYC.

Carol: Hi. I loved her succinctness. I come from a family of six women who had immediate range, between sexual assault and rape, so I feel very strongly about that. However, I agree with Lina, that maybe if we can leverage some of his change of behavior, or shame, or working with others, instead of bullying, we can get equity firms out of nursing homes, or at least part of their profit percentage, and perhaps we could get nursing training, and living wage, and dignity increase for the nurse's aide.

Brian: You're saying as somebody in a family with many sexual assault survivors, use the pressure on the governor to get policy reform, but then what with respect to him?

Carol: With respect to him, I hope that some liability cases can be used, law cases, of course, if there's any assault. I don't feel as strongly about verbal and inappropriateness. I think when people are drunk at weddings, there are certain innuendos there that I'm not willing to say he should resign, or we should impeach. I think that's a distraction, and I think that we do need to focus on a vulnerable population, similar to women, which is older people, and maybe if-- I happen to be of that generation also, so these two things are competing in my mind. I really don't want to see him do this behavior. I think maybe almost getting caught might help a lot to changing his behavior.

Brian: Carol, thank you very much. Karen, last night, Long Island congresswoman, Kathleen Rice, notably a moderate Democrat, not from the most progressive wing that's usually critical of the governor, became the latest to call for the governor to resign. She's the first member of New York's Democratic congressional delegation to do so. Why Kathleen Rice?

Karen: Well, that's a good question. I don't really have the answer to it, and I don't really want to ascribe any motives to her other than being extremely sincere, and probably upset, but she is someone who would make a good candidate for governor in 2022, just saying. That's the thing, that Governor Cuomo has said that he wants to run for a fourth term. I think people the very least think, that's probably not happening. It could be a bit of that, but like I said, I don't really want to ascribe those motives to her, but she would be somebody who has a lot of the credentials that would be a good candidate.

Brian: Several of our callers, actually, one of our callers yesterday, we also have a tweet to this effect right now, are comparing this to Democrats forcing Al Franken out of the Senate too quickly, in their opinion, and in yesterday's caller's opinion, largely coming to think that they went too far, as well as too fast. I'm curious if the Franken experience is serving as any kind of cautionary tale among the Democratic leadership of the state in the legislature. I noticed in the US Senate that Senator Gillibrand, who was a leader in calling for Franken to step down has not said anything about Cuomo so far, in that regard.

Karen: Yes, there does seem to be a perception among Democrats that with Al Franken, it was a little bit too far, because what he was accused of, and I think and admitted, in some cases doing, was not as bad as what you had other people doing who were staying in office, so there is some of that. With the news cycle, the way it's going, and everything was very heated, it's hard to make good decisions but maybe he could wait it out.

There are a lot of people who felt that Eliot Spitzer, remember when he resigned in 2008? Because he was found to have been patronizing prostitutes. There were people afterwards who thought, "Well, you know what, maybe he just shouldn't have so abruptly resigned two days after all of that was made public, maybe he could have rode it out." It's hard to say, but it's difficult. It's very difficult.

I think a lot of people would just have a big sense of shame about this, and would just want to go away and hide, and make all of this stop for a while. I just feel like if anybody's going to tough it out, it might be Andrew Cuomo. Don't forget, he did work for Bill Clinton during Bill Clinton's impeachment, which Bill Clinton rode out as well.

Brian: Vincent in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Vincent.

Vincent: Hello, how you doing? My whole take on this is about people in power, in position of power. If you limit the governor to two terms, all politicians to two terms, I think you have less corruption. I think this is all about, I can do what I want because I have the power. I'm so surprised there are so many women defending him because I would like to know if that was Trump, are they the same people think he should've been impeached or kicked out of office? I think this is the power that men have, and they continuously abuse it, especially towards women, and I think it's a shame.

Brian: You brought up the idea of term limits for governor of New York, which we don't currently have. You told our screener that you'd be interested in that?

Vincent: Yes, term limits are important because it's not allowing the people in the power to keep it and abuse it. I think you limit the governor to two terms, all politicians to two terms, I think that's a way of getting people in and out of office. You don't have this sense of, "I can do what I want because I have the power," and the people get a chance to make a choice, instead of having these people of power abusing it to say, "Okay, you need to go."

Brian: Vincent, thank you for your call, call us again. Karen, people might be surprised or might just never have thought about it. There are term limits for New York City offices, mayor, controller, city council, et cetera, but not for New York state offices. Andrew Cuomo is in his third term, has said he wants a fourth term. Same is true for the legislators, they can go on and on and on if the people choose to reelect them on and on, but I guess, power-- I don't know, power gathers over time. We've certainly seen that with Andrew Cuomo, but also, power can wane over time naturally, as we're seeing right now, but why haven't they considered term limits at the state level if they have at the city level?

Karen: Well, they would. I guess people in power would say, "Oh, we have term limits, you can just vote us out next time," but I'll tell you, I've covered New York State politics, government, for 30 years now. I've covered Andrew Cuomo's father, Mario Cuomo, former Governor George Pataki and I'm thinking of even US Senator Al D'Amato, and they all had third terms. Mario Cuomo, George Pataki, Al D'Amato, and their third terms were just a slog. Lots of problems come up.

As I was saying before about Cuomo, if you've been in power for a while, you make a lot of enemies. I can't think of a third term as governor in recent history that has been as productive as the first two terms. Things just do start to go wrong. It does seem like by about year 10 or 11, you kind of have overstayed your welcome. Obviously, the governors who have been there, they want to be state governor, but it really is a lot, a lot tougher, after about a decade of being there.

Brian: Karen in our last-minute, Attorney General Letitia James has now officially received the referral for an investigation. If the governor is going to ride this out, at least until details of the investigation are published, we don't know if that's going to happen, we don't know what's going to happen, but how quickly do you expect the attorney general's investigation? I know she's appointing somebody to do it. She's not doing it herself, but how quickly will that be completed and made public?

Karen: Yes, well, she does have to make it public, and she has said that she will. Under the rules, she was supposed to show the governor progress from the investigation each week. The Governor's counsel said, "No, we'll waive that right," because they understood what the perception would be. Yes, she does have to make it public when she's done, but I don't know. It does take a while to do a thorough investigation because you do have to interview these people, you have to set up times to do it, you have to do it the right way.

I just can't see it being done within a couple of weeks, which also makes it difficult for Governor Cuomo to keep governing, because it's just going to be hanging over his head for probably several months. It's anybody's guess but it takes a while for these things to go through, or at least several weeks, let's put it that way.

Brian: Karen DeWitt, capitol bureau chief for New York State Public Radio. Karen, thanks as always.

Karen: You're welcome.

 

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