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Joel Wertheimer, a civil rights attorney and a former associate staff secretary for Barack Obama, argues that the toxic work environment in Andrew Cuomo’s office was inextricably linked to his other failures as governor.
Wetheimer writes in an op-ed for the Guardian:
Start with the number of women whose careers were cut short and harmed by the governor’s actions. That left New York without the contributions of many women who could have made the state a better place but who left because of the abuse. And who are the women who did not get jobs in the government at all because Cuomo may not have found them attractive? What was their contribution to our collective wellbeing that was missed? It is impossible to have worked for the governor and not have noticed that the senior women who worked directly for him predominantly looked alike and notably none of them where non-white. …
The brain drain as a result of his toxic administration hurt New York. I made it seven months in the Cuomo administration in 2017. I was looking for a new job after two months. But working in an abusive and chaotic environment where nobody cared about policy outcomes was not worth proximity to power. The staff often justified what they went through as necessary for good governance, but I knew otherwise, having just come from the Obama White House, where working long hours was the norm, but so was kindness coming from the top. …
Related: Andrew Cuomo ran New York badly – because he ran a toxic workplace | Joel Wertheimer
Kathy Hochul indicated she has not yet spoken to Joe Biden, although the president tried to give her a call while she was on a flight and thus unavailable.
The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said this afternoon that Biden plans to speak to Hochul “in the coming days”, before she takes over as governor of New York later this month.