The Ironic Fall of Governor Cuomo

One of the great ironies of Governor Cuomo’s current crisis is that he has become the victim of sweeping changes in workplace harassment provisions that he signed into law in April 2019. This was pointed out to me by State Assemblywoman Amy Paulin when I ran into her in Scarsdale Village last week.

She explained that as a part of the Governor’s 2019 Women’s Justice Agenda the new law strengthened New York's anti-discrimination laws to ensure employees can seek justice and perpetrators will be held accountable by:

-Eliminating the restriction that harassment be "severe or pervasive" in order to be legally actionable.

-Mandating that all non-disclosure agreements allow employees to file a complaint of harassment or discrimination.

-Extending the statute of limitations for employment sexual harassment claims filed from one year to three years.

In addition, these new laws:

-Require employers to provide their employees with notice about the employer's sexual harassment prevention policy in English as well as the employee's primary language;

-Expand the coverage of the Human Rights Law to all employers in the state;

-Extend protections against all forms of discrimination in the workplace to all contractors, subcontractors, vendors, consultants, or others providing services; and against all forms of discriminatory harassment to domestic workers;

-Require courts to interpret the Human Rights Law liberally regardless of the federal rollback of rights;

-Prohibit mandatory arbitration to resolve cases of discrimination and harassment in the workplace;

-Update the power of the Attorney General to enforce the Human Rights Law; and

-Require a study on how best to build on recent sexual harassment prevention laws to combat all types of discrimination in the workplace and a review of sexual harassment policies every four years.

How will this law affect Cuomo?

According to NYS Attorney General Letitia James report, the Governor’s reported sexual harassment dates back to 2019, and therefore can be reported under the new extension of the statute of limitations.

The 2019 law lowered the bar for discriminatory behavior from “severe or pervasive” to “more than “a petty slight or inconvenience,” making it less burdensome for the eleven victims to come forward.

The 2019 law extends protection to contractors, subcontractors, vendors and consultants and others providing services. Beyond the harassment in his own office, the Governor is charged with targeting women who did not work on his own staff including a state trooper and could be included in the report.

Furthermore, it’s not clear if the Governor completed the workplace harassment training that is required under a 2018 bill that he himself signed into law.

Will the Governor lose his pension? Again, he could become the victim of another bill he signed into law, effective January 2018, after it was passed by a constitutional amendment.

The law says that if he is convicted of a felony, “connected to his public duties, the judge has discretion to reduce or revoke the pension upon a hearing and consideration of several factors (e.g., will it cause undue hardship to the person's children/spouse, and the severity of the crime.) As some of the victims are pursuing criminal charges against the Governor, if he is convicted he may also lose his pension.

What can we conclude? Whether it was hubris or a blind spot, the Governor failed to connect his own behavior with the laws he enacted.