Momentum against Eric Adams’ legal pick builds in City Council

NEW YORK — Another City Council caucus is coming out against Mayor Eric Adams’ pick to lead the city Law Department — the latest sign his controversial selection is in trouble.

The six-member LGBTQIA+ Caucus released a statement Friday opposing Randy Mastro, whom Adams is expected to put forth as the city’s corporation counsel. It marks the second caucus within the 51-member legislative body to publicly buck the anticipated appointment, over which the lawmakers hold veto power.

“Corporation Counsel is the people’s lawyer, not the mayor’s, and the people are staunchly against returning to the Giuliani era,” the statement read, referring to Mastro's previous role as a deputy mayor in Rudy Giuliani's City Hall. “The City Council’s LGBTQIA+ Caucus opposes Randy Mastro’s nomination to this vital position.”

During a caucus meeting Thursday in City Hall, one member suggested releasing a statement in opposition to the anticipated appointment of Mastro to succeed outgoing top lawyer Sylvia Hinds-Radix, who is leaving amid reports of conflict.

After a majority vote in favor of publicizing the caucus' concerns, co-chairs Erik Bottcher and Tiffany Cabán drafted the language and then solicited input from fellow caucus members.

In addition to his work with for Giuliani, the caucus cited Mastro’s time representing a group opposed to homeless men staying at an Upper West Side hotel. As part of that case, Mastro hired private detectives who posed as plumbers and photographed a homeless individual shirtless in his unit.

“Even beyond Mr. Mastro’s troubling history of representing clients that directly contradict the values and principles we uphold as a City Council committed to equality, justice, and inclusivity, his dirty, underhanded tactics disqualify him from a position which calls for someone of the utmost honor and integrity,” the statement added.

The vote, however, was not unanimous. Council Member David Carr, a Republican representing Staten Island and a portion of Brooklyn, said Mastro deserves careful consideration by the council.

“I disagree with the LGBTQIA+ Caucus statement regarding Randy Mastro,” Carr wrote in a social media post. “Randy is an accomplished attorney who served effectively in the Giuliani administration, the greatest in modern times in NYC.”

In response to Friday’s statement, mayoral spokesperson Liz Garcia pointed to Mastro’s work in the Giuliani administration establishing one of the nation’s farthest reaching domestic partnership laws in 1998, a promise that the then-mayor made to gay rights organizations during his campaign. She also noted Mastro defended one of the city’s most prominent homeless shelter providers when a neighborhood group tried to prevent one of their facilities from opening.

“We trust the speaker to be fair and impartial as we move through the process. But anyone who looks at Randy’s record will see he has a long history of fighting for the most vulnerable, including LGBTQIA+ and unhoused New Yorkers,” Garcia said in a statement. “In fact, he helped pass legislation that ensured the city would treat unmarried, same-sex couples the same as married couples, and he defended the Bowery Residents’ Committee against a wealthy, ‘not in my backyard’ coalition that tried to stop the organization from establishing multiple shelters and treatment programs in Chelsea.”

Friday’s salvo follows a similar statement the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus released Tuesday, and is part of a broad wave of discontent from members that is coming before the nomination is even formally made.

“This is not a gray area, [like] ‘maybe we can squeak it through,’” one council member, who was granted anonymity to discuss internal dynamics, said in an interview. “The votes aren’t there, and it’s not just the progressives. It’s the moderates too.”

The council’s Progressive Caucus has already signaled displeasure, with its leaders telling the Daily News they will try to block the nomination.

And the 30-member Women’s Caucus is gearing up for a meeting to discuss Mastro, according to four people with knowledge of the process, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal council dynamics.

As POLITICO previously reported, council Speaker Adrienne Adams personally expressed her displeasure with Mastro’s likely nomination in a recent phone call with the mayor. And one of the people who spoke with POLITICO said the speaker’s team is encouraging members to vocalize their views on Mastro.

A representative from the speaker’s office, however, said opposition to Mastro has been welling up from members themselves, and the council leader has simply not waved them off from making their feelings public.

While not every member will be on board with leadership of the caucuses, statements are approved with a majority vote, and the numbers are not trending in City Hall’s favor.

That has not, however, stopped the administration from plowing ahead into what is shaping up to be an unforgiving political landscape.

The mayor’s team has sought to counter the council’s criticisms by pointing to other aspects of Mastro’s biography, which City Hall argues would make him an ideal corporation counsel — a position that holds sway over all manner of policy decisions and defends the administration, council and individual members of government in court.

“Randy’s an incredibly top notch, world-renowned lawyer who’s given tremendous service already in the past to New York City and to the people of New York,” Lisa Zornberg, chief counsel to the mayor, said at an unrelated press briefing Tuesday.

Zornberg noted that Mastro was previously the vice chair of the Legal Aid Society and was the highest-ranking Democrat in the administration of the former Republican mayor, Giuliani — a perch from which he went after mafia activity at the Fulton Fish Market. Mastro also represented racial justice protesters who were forcibly removed from a park near the White House in 2020.

The mayor said in a radio interview Friday that Mastro should not be pilloried because of the clients he has represented.

“I just think it’s a slippery slope when you judge a lawyer by his clients because the goal is due process and everyone has a right to have an attorney,” the mayor said.

Mastro currently serves as chair of Citizens Union, a longstanding government accountability group. The executive director of that organization, Betsy Gotbaum, penned an opinion piece in the Daily News lauding Mastro’s experience and pro bono legal work.

In an interview, she argued the council’s preemptive statements are circumventing a nomination process that includes hearings and testimony that are supposed to inform members’ votes.

“No one is giving us any chance to talk about what we know about Randy,” she said in an interview, later adding, “I don’t think it’s right. If they’re against him, fine. But give him a chance to talk.”

The administration still has some time. Mastro’s name has not even been formally transmitted to the council. And even if that happened by the body’s next full meeting on May 16, lawmakers would still have 30 days to consider the nomination, likely putting a vote in June at the earliest. One member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said such an extended timeline gives team Adams more time to work over members, some of whom might end up distancing themselves from the caucus statements coming out currently.

And should the administration ultimately fail to convince a majority of lawmakers to sign on, there are other ways to bring Mastro into the fold.

Adams could name him as a deputy mayor, a position that does not require the advice and consent of the council. Former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for example, had a deputy mayor for legal affairs and counsel.

But based on Friday's statement from the caucus, it's going to be a tough road for Adams.

The statement also called on him to reverse course, and instead "put forward a candidate who upholds the values of equality, justice, and fairness for all New Yorkers, including the LGBTQIA+ community, and cut ties with the legacy and inner circle of Giuliani, a disgraced, bigoted, indicted far-right crook.”