A blistering report, a denial, then a resignation: How will history judge Cuomo?

One bombshell begets another. A week after the attorney general's report documented cases of sexual harassment, Gov. Andrew Cuomo sat behind a New York City microphone and announced his resignation, a stunning exit from the political stage.

When his father, Mario Cuomo, was governor, contemplating whether a run for the White House was to be or not to be, pundits dubbed him “Hamlet on the Hudson,” a man who they said thought too much.

When Andrew Cuomo took office in January 2011, he was determined not to sit around and wait for things to happen. In public life for more than 30 years at that time, the younger Cuomo pushed his legislative and executive agenda with a pugnacious my-way-or-the-highway style that bristled opponents and allies alike.

There were achievements: marriage equality, a $15 minimum wage, the $4-billion bridge he named for his father, and a science-based voice of reason at the center of the global pandemic, a stark contrast to the muddled White House messaging at the time.

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There were also nursing home deaths to COVID, a book deal that raised eyebrows and, after allegations of sexual harassment emerged in March 2021, a circle-the-wagons and control-the-narrative posture that forbade media at his public events. He would wait, Cuomo had said, for the report by Attorney General Letitia James before discussing the allegations: "Hamlet on the Hudson: The Sequel."

That lasted a week, a week full of howls for his resignation and plans for his impeachment. Even before Cuomo resigned Tuesday, allies and adversaries from Rochester to Westchester began taking stock of Cuomo’s legacy and wondering how history will treat the 56th governor of New York.

'A damn shame'

James’ report arrived weeks after New York marked the 10th anniversary of marriage equality, a signature legislative success in the first months of Cuomo’s first term.

In 2011, the governor was able to do what others had failed to in 2009: convince four Republican members of the state Senate to side with the Democrats in making same-sex marriage the law in New York, the first large state to do so. The final vote came in the waning minutes of the legislative session and Cuomo was on hand to sign it, practically before the ink was dry on the bill.

Marriage equality activist Michael Sabatino of Yonkers was in the Senate chamber that night a decade ago and has come to know the governor over the years. Sabatino's husband, Robert Voorheis, had lobbied for marriage equality.

"I think a lot of people in the LGBT community will always appreciate the efforts that he made to push for marriage equality," Sabatino said. "He had really organized the whole group of people from different aspects of the movement to try and get things done."

In the near term, the AG's report and impeachment and scandal and resignation is what New Yorkers will think of when they think of the governor.

"People hold on to the negative stuff," Sabatino said. "They don't always remember the positive stuff."

There is a lot of negative stuff in James' blistering report: 165 pages of it; 179 interviews; 11 accusers. Sabatino calls the report disheartening.

The James report is part of Cuomo's legacy, alongside marriage equality, Sabatino said.

"The history will always be there. As to whether it will be part of the aftermath in news articles, literature, books, it's hard to say. But what he accomplished, he accomplished. You can't take it away. It's just such a damn shame, though, that the man has a legacy and then this has to overshadow his accomplishments. It's sad."

$15 an hour, but 'horrified'

Stuart Appelbaum didn't forget what Andrew Cuomo had done for New York's workers, but his recollections are now followed by "yet" and "but."

Hours after James' report was released, Appelbaum — president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and executive vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union — issued a statement.

“Gov. Andrew Cuomo has provided crucial leadership during the pandemic; he raised the minimum wage to $15 before any other state; he achieved marriage equality in New York when others didn’t believe it would be possible," the statement read. "Our union will always be grateful for when his leadership supported our members."

Then came the “yet.”

“Yet after reading the 164-page report of the independent investigation overseen by the Office of the State Attorney General, we cannot ignore the facts. The Governor’s behavior towards women in his own workplace was well documented and verified through multiple sources. There can be no denying that his behavior created a toxic environment for woman, and can only be called sexual harassment.

“While we acknowledge the good things he has achieved," the statement continued, "now is the time for Governor Cuomo to resign.”

Appelbaum had followed the marriage-equality campaign, and its 2009 failure.

"I remember thinking it was going to be dead for quite some time in New York. And then he powered it through. I think it's fair to say that marriage equality in New York would not have happened when it did if it were not for Cuomo," he said.

The governor also championed the $15 minimum wage, first for fast-food workers, then more broadly, an achievement that benefited Appelbaum's union directly. The union chief also gives Cuomo credit for getting the wheels of government moving again.

"You couldn't get much worse than David Paterson," Appelbaum said, of the man Cuomo replaced. "I think that just the fact that after his failed predecessor, he was able to get government functioning again was important at the time."

Then comes a but.

"But that doesn't absolve him of all other behavior," Appelbaum said. "You can still applaud what he did in these areas and be horrified by what he did elsewhere."

A call seeking comment from Mario Cilento, president of the AFL/CIO — the powerful worker’s union that benefited from the $15 minimum wage and the construction of the Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge — drew a “we are going to pass” response.

A friend in need

Hilda Rosario Escher, former president and CEO of Ibero-American Action League in Rochester, still has the website up from her unsuccessful run for the state Senate in District 56 last year.

She is still there, pictured beside Gov. Andrew Cuomo, her arm on his elbow, in front of the cameras. And she’s still beside Cuomo months later.

Rosario Escher, speaking before Cuomo resigned, was unwilling to speak about the charges that swirl around the governor. But she will talk at length about how Cuomo was there for her native Puerto Rico after the devastating Hurricane Maria in 2017, how he found the resources that allowed 5,000 of her countrymen to find refuge in Rochester.

“He was the first elected official to go to Puerto Rico,” she said. “He took a lot of supplies and took SUNY and CUNY students that wanted to go to Puerto Rico to help reconstruct the roofs and the houses. The guy is brilliant and if he’s gonna be done, it’s going to be a great loss for the state.”

Cuomo’s legacy, she said, will not be diminished.

“Independent of what happens, his work will always be here, and it will be a reminder of his love for the state.”

'He's done wonders for our state'

If Cuomo was looking for someone to buoy him — after the resignation this week of his trusted lieutenant Melissa DeRosa — he could have looked to East Rochester, and true believer Sandy Behan, who started a private Facebook group, Women for Governor Cuomo, to “support Cuomo for his leadership throughout the coronavirus pandemic.”

Its position was clear on the harassment allegations: “We all know this is a setup! He's done wonders for our state! And he needs our support!”

The private group now has 1,200 members, Behan said, with another 100 or so asking to be admitted since James' report was issued.

How ardent is Behan?

She splintered off a separate group — We Decide New York, Inc. — which now numbers about 175, she said, and supports “due process for all people, justice and equality.”

It has another goal: “To try to bring the truth to the forefront of what Gov. Cuomo is all about and to keep people's minds focused on what he has done for New Yorkers and what he continues to do. He is nationally and even overseas a hero for the way he handled the pandemic.”

The governor’s legacy, including marriage equality and the massive infrastructure plan, is being overshadowed, she said, “and that's unfortunate.”

After Cuomo's announcement, Behan said his followers were heartbroken.

"This is a travesty," she added. "We hoped that he would have fought for himself and his right to due process and justice. He is New York Tough!"

'He saved the Yonkers School District'

Like Cuomo, Yonkers Mayor Mike Spano waited for the AG's report. Unlike Cuomo, when Spano saw the report he immediately concluded it was time for the governor to resign.

Spano, a Democrat, conceded that his wasn't a full-throated howl for the governor to go, not "hard-core." He and the governor have history. Days later, he still chose his words painstakingly when talking about it.

"I thought he indicated pretty clearly that he would abide by the report. And he should do that," Spano said the day before Cuomo resigned. "But hopefully history will be kind to him."

The Yonkers mayor, who spent 20 years in the state Legislature as a Republican, said he heard talk about replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge for decades. "He was the single governor who was able to make that happen," he said.

And Spano will never forget a phone call to Cuomo in 2015, when the board of education discovered a $55 million hole in the budget, a hole that could have swallowed the city-run board of education.

"The children would have suffered for years to come," Spano said.

Cuomo took the call and said the state would help, but, Spano said, made it clear: "There are no blank checks coming out of Albany. I need reform."

Spano consolidated five departments, Cuomo found the money to fill the budget hole.

"It bridged us through," Spano said. "He saved the Yonkers School District, singlehandedly, with the help of the state legislature."

'He did this to himself'

State Sen. Alessandra Biaggi worked as a lawyer in the Cuomo Administration and helped to craft 2019's Reproductive Health Act, protecting women's reproductive rights by codifying "Roe v. Wade" into state law. But the Pelham Democrat is no fan of Cuomo.

Yes, he secured marriage equality and the $15 minimum wage and replaced the Tappan Zee Bridge. But he also sided with the Independent Democratic Conference, a group of eight Democratic state Senators who gave Republicans control of the chamber from 2011 to 2018.

That action prevented progress on climate justice, the child victims act, immigration and LGBTQ laws and "all of the sexual harassment laws that really mattered," Biaggi said.

New York will lose a seat in Congress to redistricting because Cuomo delayed the release of $20 million in legislature funds for the Census and the state came up 89 people short in the count, costing it an upstate representative in Washington.

Cuomo's legacy will include the attorney general's report, and the 11 women who accused him, but any tarnishing of his legacy, Biaggi said, "is his own doing."

"He did this to himself. Nobody else did this to him," she said. "So the idea that he is a victim in this is preposterous, and I rarely used that word."

Peter D. Kramer can be reached at pkramer@lohud.com or on Twitter at @PeterKramer. Read his latest stories. Please follow the link on the page below and become a backer of this kind of coverage. It only works with you as a subscriber.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Andrew Cuomo: How will history judge the embroiled New York governor?