Gov. Cuomo is right when he says that removing Sheldon Silver as Assembly speaker wouldn’t end sexual harassment in Albany. But he’s wrong to say dumping Silver wouldn’t make any difference.
“I don’t think it’s about changing a person or a name,” the governor told a news conference this week. “It’s about changing the rules as a recognition that we have to change the behavior.”
Fair enough. But, as Cuomo also noted, “When you don’t address [the problem] systematically, now it’s all of our problem, because it erodes the trust.” And no one has failed to address the dysfunction and abusive behavior of his members more systematically than Silver.
Yes, Shelly may be singing a different tune these days. On Tuesday, he said that if the allegations of harassment by seven women against Dennis Gabryszak are true, the Upstate assemblyman “should resign, there’s no question about it.”
But the change in tone comes only after multiple examples of Silver having turned a blind eye to harassment and worse by Assembly members and even his own staffers. Worse still, as in the case of Vito Lopez, his first instinct was to cover things up by authorizing a cash “settlement” — i.e., hush money — to the accusers.
The governor is right: we have to change behavior. But what does it say about his commitment to changing behavior when he then claims that removing the man who most abetted it won’t make any difference?