SCHWARTZ TRIES TO RALLY FOR CUOMO
New York’s vaccine czar calls on Dems to back governor
At the height of the pandemic, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called upon some of his most trusted emissaries to return to the fold to help coordinate the state’s coronavirus response, including Larry Schwartz, his former top aide who is now leading New York’s vaccination efforts.
But with Cuomo facing concurrent scandals and calls for his resignation, Schwartz has also assumed a more familiar role: as a political operative, asking state Democratic leaders to support the governor, a thirdterm Democrat, while continuing to discuss the urgent business of immunization.
According to two Democratic county executives, Schwartz placed calls to them in recent weeks, inquiring about their loyalty to the governor amid a series of sexual harassment allegations that have led many congressional Democrats in New York, including both the state’s senators, to demand Cuomo’s resignation.
In one case, a county executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said that after Schwartz had discussed the governor’s political situation, he then pivoted directly to a conversation about vaccine distribution.
In another example, a second county executive said Schwartz called immediately after a different Cuomo administration official
had called about vaccine distribution in the county.
The close timing of those calls was unusual enough that the second executive’s legal counsel filed a preliminary complaint Friday with the state attorney general office’s public integrity bureau about a possible ethics violation by the governor’s office, according to an official with direct knowledge of the complaint.
Schwartz insisted in a statement Sunday that he had never mixed COVID-response
policy with political considerations, noting that “distribution and the administration of vaccines in New York state is based on a clear formula.”
“All decisions regarding vaccines are done based on public health considerations, not politics,” Schwartz said. “At no time has politics ever entered into the discussion or decisionmaking regarding vaccines. I have never discussed vaccines in a political context and anyone who thinks that
is seriously mistaken.”
Beth Garvey, acting counsel to the governor, praised Schwartz for working “night and day to help New York through this pandemic” and rejected any intimation from the county executives of improper politicking.
The disclosure of Schwartz’s phone calls comes as Cuomo is engaged in a fight for his political survival unlike any he has confronted in his decades in politics.
A string of women have made accusations against him, including groping, sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior, and their claims are being investigated by independent lawyers overseen by the state attorney general. The governor has denied touching anyone inappropriately.
Cuomo has faced a fusillade of calls for his resignation that, on Friday, also included dozens of Democratic members of the state Assembly, though that chamber remained a bulwark between the governor and impeachment.
The speaker, Carl Heastie of the Bronx, announced last week that the Judiciary Committee would investigate the issue. But neither Democrats nor Republicans in that chamber have the votes to impeach Cuomo and force a trial in the state Senate, where the majority leader, Andrea Stewart-Cousins, has said Cuomo should resign.
With the exception of minor legislative issues, the Democrats, who rule the 150-member Assembly by a more than 2-1 ratio, never move a bill or measure to a vote without having a simple majority — 76 votes — among their own party members.
For impeachment to proceed, backers of such a move would need to reach that level of support among Democrats, but are still short of that threshold. The 43 Republicans in the chamber, most of whom are in favor of impeachment, are not being considered in the calculus.
The Assembly investigation — and a parallel inquiry overseen by the state attorney general, Letitia James — could take months to complete, effectively buying the governor time to repair his battered public image. And the governor, his supporters and his aides have, in fact, worked to shore up support behind the scenes. A Democratic political operative who has been a longtime ally of the governor, Charlie King, has in recent days solicited public comments urging that the investigations be given time to be completed.