Let’s see if we’ve got this right: The governor insists New York needs a liberalization of the state’s late-term-abortion law he admits will make no practical difference — and which may not make it through the Senate.
What a splendid example of how Albany sets its priorities.
Flanked by leaders from various women’s organizations, Gov. Cuomo yesterday announced his late-term-abortion change as part of a 10-point “Woman’s Equality Act.” Among the claims is that the measure will “stop sexual harassment in all workplaces.”
Which in Albany raises the obvious question: How, the governor was asked, can he claim zero tolerance for sexual harassment in the workplace when he stands by a leader who not only tolerated but abetted such harassment in the state Assembly?
The leader, of course, is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who used taxpayer dollars to try to buy the silence of women who complained about harassment from Silver staffer Michael Boxley and, later, Assemblyman Vito Lopez. Cuomo dismissed the question. But as The Post reports elsewhere in today’s newspaper, the embarrassed silence over Silver from the women around Cuomo made for an awkward moment.
Precisely. As we have said from the start, Lopez was a creep, but the leaders who enabled him betrayed a greater responsibility. In any decent organization, such a leader would be forced out, and others would not want to be seen with him.
But Albany is not a decent organization. In his remarks, Cuomo griped that “New York has fallen behind in its role as a progressive leader on women’s rights.” If the gov and his coalition want to change that, they could start by sending a signal that no man — no matter how politically powerful — who covers up and abets sexual harassment will keep his job.