Rocks and glass houses: Degrees of disapproval

In practice, the standard for when elected officials insist that a governing colleague must resign following accusations of misconduct, before an independent investigation or an impeachment proceeding has been conducted, is reminiscent of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s famous 1964 definition of what constitutes hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it.”

There simply aren’t setin-stone moral codes delineating what behavior is so egregious, that even when unproved, that it warrants a politician’s immediate, voluntary departure from public office. That vagueness often leads to logical and moral inconsistencies. And political expediency.

Is a single criminal complaint of choking your wife during a fight qualitatively less bad than the multiple accusations of sexual harassment and unwanted physical contact New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is now facing? Hard to say.

But if is, that would explain the relative silence from state lawmakers about Bronx state Sen. Luis Sepulveda, who was arrested on Jan. 12 on charges he choked his wife during a domestic dispute. Sepulveda claimed his wife also physically attacked him and firmly denied the charges, and his attorney says the wife’s complaint was “a calculated attempt by a disgruntled party to leverage a divorce settlement.”

Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins properly and immediately stripped Sepulveda of his committee chairmanship, which just happened to be the Crime Victims, Crime And Correction panel, saying “I take these allegations extremely seriously and will be monitoring this situation closely.” But not seriously enough for her nor anyone else to demand that Sepúlveda immediately resign. And there have been no moves to expel him. But Stewart-Cousins says that Cuomo must go.

Meanwhile, GOP Rep. Tom Reed from western New York is now being accused by a former lobbyist of drunkenly groping her and unhooking her bra at a bar during a 2017 outing after a day of ice-fishing. Reed has for weeks been among the lawmakers of both parties calling loudly for Cuomo to resign or face impeachment for his various alleged misdeeds.

Will fellow Republicans like Reps. Nicole Malliotakis, who started a petition calling upon Cuomo to immediately resign, and Elise Stefanik, who called Cuomo a “criminal sexual predator” and demanded that he quit office at once, seek Reed’s ouster too?

Speaking of hypocrisy, it was just a few days ago that Cuomo insisted that naysayers and politicians calling for his removal should instead wait for the conclusion of the attorney general’s independent investigation into the sexual harassment accusations.

“Wait for the facts,” Cuomo said last week. And yet, word comes that Cuomo’s office has begun its own parallel inquiry into allegations made by a current employee that he groped her. If Cuomo really believes the AG’s independent investigation should be the arbiter of the facts, then why would he conduct his own, separate and unsolicited probe? If he really believes in the value of an independent investigation to suss out the truth, then why did members of his administration leak unflattering details of one of his accusers’ state personnel file to reporters?

Never expect consistency in politics.