For as long as he’s been governor, Andrew Cuomo has given his tacit and not-so-tacit backing to the so-called “Independent Democratic Conference”—a group of renegade Democrats who for years have colluded with Republicans to keep the GOP in charge of New York’s state Senate in exchange for lavish perks and their own share of power. Now we have reports that Cuomo has brokered a deal to reunite the IDC with the rest of the Democratic Party, but we’ve heard this fairy tale before, and it’s all a bunch of self-serving garbage.
There’s one and only one reason why Cuomo and the IDC are saying they’re ready to back down now: They’re worried about their primaries. Last month, actress and activist Cynthia Nixon announced she’d run against Cuomo in September’s primary, and most of the eight members of the IDC have also earned serious challenges from true Democrats.
Cuomo may be a reactionary, but he’s not stupid: Progressive anger at the IDC escalated to white-hot levels immediately after Donald Trump’s victory, with local activists newly eager to dump a Democratic junta that willingly aids and abets the GOP right in their own backyard. Cuomo is now directly threatened by this same movement, too—Nixon’s candidacy, says one reporter, “prompted him to take immediate action.”
Four years ago, Cuomo beat back a primary challenge from little-known law professor Zephyr Teachout with just 63 percent of the vote, a soft total for a deep-pocketed incumbent with a famous last name. Nixon’s celebrity and her much earlier start (Teachout didn’t launch her campaign until June) put Cuomo in a much more precarious position this time. The same is true for the IDC, whose intra-party opponents have been running aggressive campaigns and have already raised real money. This deal is simply an effort by Cuomo and the IDC to don a progressive fig-leaf and kneecap all of their challengers.
Indeed, Cuomo pulled the exact same stunt in 2014, for the exact same reasons. In order to stop the Working Families Party from endorsing Teachout that year, Cuomo promised to help Democrats retake the state Senate and even publicly warned the IDC that there’d be consequences if they didn’t return to the fold. Of course, he didn’t mean a word of it. After the WFP caved, Cuomo promptly reneged on all his pledges: He didn’t lift a finger for Senate Democrats and never put a drop of pressure on the IDC. But it worked all right, because Cuomo won re-election and the IDC-GOP alliance remained intact.
Don’t buy Cuomo’s b.s. Give $3 to these three true Democrats who are challenging the Republican-abetting IDC and turn New York blue once and for all.
This go-round, the timing of this alleged agreement offers even further proof of just how insincere Cuomo’s motives are. In November, Cuomo also claimed to support a reunification plan, but nothing ever came of it. Instead, he waited to push this deal until right after the state’s annual budget was completed last week—a budget which, once again, mainstream Senate Democrats were not permitted to participate in drafting. If Cuomo had truly wanted to prove his liberal bona fides, he would have made it before passing the budget, and given real Democrats a seat at the table.
But doing so would have allowed Democrats (who also control the state Assembly) to pass all manner of progressive legislation, most of which makes Cuomo nauseous. He hates almost any idea that would cost rich people and powerful business interests actual money, which is why he’s so grateful for the roadblock that the IDC-GOP pact has imposed on liberal wishlists for his entire tenure.
And even if this “deal” comes to pass, there’s literally nothing that would prevent the IDC from reconstituting itself after November’s elections and once again selling out to keep Republicans in charge.
Check that: There is one way. If we can defeat the IDC’s members at the ballot box in September and replace them with stand-up Democrats who will side with their party, then we can make sure that deep blue New York gets the proper progressive representation it deserves.
Don’t buy Cuomo’s b.s. Give $3 to these three true Democrats who are challenging the Republican-abetting IDC and turn New York blue once and for all.