How Albany could send him packing
The potential impeachment of Gov. Cuomo could put the threeterm Democratic governor on trial for his political life — and create a sordid spectacle of young women testifying about unwanted kisses and creepy come-ons.
The process of removing a public official in New York is similar to that in Congress, with impeachment requiring a simple majority vote by the 150member Assembly, which is composed of
106 Democrats, 43 Re- publicans and one independent.
Once impeached, the official faces a trial in the state Senate, with a two-thirds vote needed for conviction.
The 63-member Senate is split 43-20 in favor of Democrats, but under the state Constitution, the chamber’s majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers, can’t take part in a trial of the governor.
The judges of the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, would participate and even get to vote on a verdict, said a spokesman for the court.
All seven judges were nominated by Cuomo.
In addition, the Constitution says that Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul (inset) would begin serving as acting governor should Cuomo be impeached, and that she would be precluded from voting on a verdict as president pro tempore of the Senate.
In the event of conviction, punishment is limited to removal from office and the added possibility of being disqualified from holding any other “public office of honor trust or profit” in New York.
Cuomo’s term doesn’t expire until the end of next year, and Hochul would serve the remainder of it if he’s ousted.
Only one New York governor — William “Plain Bill” Sulzer, a Democratic former assemblyman and congressman — has been impeached.
His impeachment came six months after he was elected in 1912 and after he abolished no-show, patronage jobs and refused to appoint cronies of the corrupt Tammany Hall political machine, which had helped him win.
Sulzer was accused of misusing campaign funds and convicted on Oct. 17, 1913.
He was elected to the Assembly days after his ouster.
Sulzer ran again for governor the following year but lost in a landslide and withdrew from politics before dying in 1941.