Legislators could decide by early next month to try to force the governor from office over allegations that he sexually harassed 11 women.
ALBANY, N.Y. — With Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s political future in the balance, the members of the State Assembly’s judiciary committee convened on Monday to lay the groundwork for impeachment proceedings to remove the governor from office.
With the leaders of the Assembly moving intently to oust him, Mr. Cuomo faces the prospect of becoming only the second governor to be impeached in the state’s history after a New York State attorney general report concluded that he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women.
Mr. Cuomo, who has denied touching anyone inappropriately, is in the most precarious moment of his decade-long tenure, facing a chorus of calls for his resignation from top Democrats, including President Biden and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.
The governor has become increasingly isolated as he weighs his future, with few defenders, except for his lawyers, speaking out on his behalf. On Sunday, Melissa DeRosa, his top aide and most loyal strategist, announced her resignation, the highest-profile departure from his administration since the report’s release, which also prompted the state’s most powerful labor leaders to turn on him.
Impeachment now seems increasingly inevitable: Carl E. Heastie, the Speaker of the Assembly, believes he has the support from most, if not all, of the Democratic majority to impeach Mr. Cuomo, according to a person familiar with his thinking.
But articles of impeachment might not be considered until early September, with lawmakers signaling that they want to review evidence, hold hearings in the coming weeks and carefully deliberate whether there are grounds to impeach Mr. Cuomo. The governor could use the intervening time to mount a public defense, but most people in his orbit believe that will do little to alter the political opposition against him in Albany.
“We commend the attorney general on her work and her agreement to provide the relative material to this committee,” said Assemblyman Charles D. Lavine, a Democrat from Nassau County and the chairman of the judiciary committee, who described the report’s findings as “deeply disturbing.”
The judiciary committee went into executive session following the brief remarks from Mr. Lavine. He said the members would unveil more details about the impeachment process later on Monday.
The State Assembly, which Democrats control, had launched a sprawling impeachment investigation into Mr. Cuomo in March that focused not only on the sexual harassment claims, but the governor’s handling of nursing home deaths data during the pandemic and his possible use of state resources to write a book on leadership that netted him $5.1 million last year.
The inquiry was moving slowly, but regained momentum after Letitia James, the state attorney general, unveiled a 165-report last week that found Mr. Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women, most of them government employees, and retaliated against one of the women for speaking out. The report’s findings sparked immediate additional support for impeachment among members of the Assembly, where some lawmakers had been hesitant about calling on Mr. Cuomo to resign earlier this year.
In a particularly notable move, Mr. Heastie, a Democrat who was seen by many as an ally of Mr. Cuomo and had previously suggested that the attorney general’s report might not be enough to impeach Mr. Cuomo, said last week that Mr. Cuomo could “no longer remain in office.” Mr. Heastie said the governor had lost the confidence of Assembly Democrats and that they would move “expeditiously” to conclude their investigation.
On Saturday, the attorney general’s office began handing over volumes of evidence from its investigation, including transcripts from interviews with witnesses and troves of documents, to the Assembly, according to a person familiar with the matter. The materials, which are being sent electronically, will be kept in a secure location in the State Capitol because some of the evidence might be unredacted, said the person, who requested anonymity to discuss ongoing deliberations among lawmakers.
Outside lawyers hired by the Assembly from the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP are expected to review the materials to corroborate that the evidence is consistent with the preliminary findings from their impeachment investigation.
The governor and his team have until Friday to submit additional evidence in his defense before the outside lawyers conclude their investigation. Mr. Cuomo’s lawyers have criticized the attorney general’s investigation as biased and rushed, saying it was conducted to fit a “predetermined narrative” about Mr. Cuomo’s behavior. They have also requested the underlying evidence from the investigation from the attorney general’s office.
Understand the Scandals Challenging Gov. Cuomo’s Leadership
Multiple claims of sexual harassment. At least 11 women, including current and former members of his administration, have accused Mr. Cuomo of sexual harassment, unwanted advances or inappropriate behavior. He has refused to resign, and focus has turned to the State Assembly’s ongoing impeachment investigation.
The judiciary committee could convene again on Aug. 16, the person said, and, by Aug. 23, lawmakers could finalize a schedule of hearings to present to the public the evidence against the governor. The purpose of the hearings, which could last several days, will be to determine whether there is cause to believe Mr. Cuomo engaged in impeachable conduct, which the State Constitution defines very vaguely.
By early September, the judiciary committee could make a decision on whether to draft articles of impeachment against Mr. Cuomo.
The State Constitution offers few parameters on the steps that need to be taken during an impeachment process, so lawmakers are drawing on examples from impeachment proceedings in other states, as well as proceedings against lower-level state officials. They have also studied the 1913 impeachment in of Gov. William Sulzer, the only governor to be impeached in the history of New York.
Lawmakers in the 150-seat Assembly could impeach Mr. Cuomo with a simple majority vote. But Mr. Heastie is likely to proceed with impeachment only if he has the support of enough Democrats alone to vote in favor of impeachment, sticking to a long-held convention in Albany of moving only on measures that are supported by a majority of the party in control.
Even though there is enough support among Republicans and Democrats to impeach, Mr. Heastie’s approach means that 76 out of the 106 lawmakers who caucus with Democrats would need to support impeachment.
A trial would then be held in the State Senate, where Democrat are in the majority, with a jury made up of most Senate members and the seven judges from the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court. State Senator Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the Democratic majority leader, would have to abstain, according to the State Constitution.
A two-thirds majority is required to convict.
The State Senate has already begun consulting with outside legal experts on a possible trial.
“We have been preparing for this possibility since the Spring when we thought this might be something that could occur, but there is not a lot of precedent in this situation,” said State Senator Michael Gianaris, the deputy majority leader. “We’ve dug pretty deep into the legal analyses about how to do this properly.”
If convicted, Mr. Cuomo would be removed from office and potentially barred permanently from seeking statewide political office. He would be replaced by Lt. Gov. Kathleen Hochul, a Democrat.
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