The indictment of Mayor Eric Adams prompted calls for his resignation Wednesday evening, but there is no legal requirement that he leave office.
If he does resign before his term ends, the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, would become acting mayor and a special election would be scheduled.
A special election would most likely draw a number of candidates, at least some of whom have already declared that they will run against Mr. Adams in next year’s Democratic primary. Former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who is seeking a political comeback, could also join the field.
Mr. Adams, in a videotaped speech posted online late Wednesday, proclaimed his innocence, vowed to fight any charges against him and made it clear he did not plan to resign.
There is another way Mr. Adams could leave office: The New York City Charter gives Gov. Kathy Hochul the power to remove him. But the process would be complicated.
Under the charter, Ms. Hochul, who had not commented on the indictment as of late Wednesday, could suspend Mr. Adams for up to 30 days and then remove him “after service upon him of a copy of the charges and an opportunity to be heard in his defense.”
That is where New Yorkers would be entering uncharted territory. A governor has not exercised such powers in recent memory. The closest precedent occurred in 1931, when Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt held 14 days of hearings into the misconduct of Mayor Jimmy Walker, who eventually resigned in 1932 before going to Europe.
Roosevelt’s hearings took place in the Statehouse’s Red Room. As he prepared to assume the presidency in 1933, he filed several memorandums explaining the hearings with the state attorney general and defending his power to remove Mr. Walker.
Roosevelt, The New York Times wrote at the time, thought the memos were “of some importance because the Walker case in the future would be referred to in other cases involving the power of removal of certain public officials by the governor and because, unlike cases at law, no opportunity exists for including a digest of any such extensive cases in any law report.”
It is unclear how Ms. Hochul would pursue Mr. Adams’s removal, or if she would try.
“When the Constitution, statutes and City Charter are read together, the governor has broad latitude in deciding what actions or failures to act would justify removing a mayor from office,” said James M. McGuire, a former counsel to Gov. George Pataki now in private practice. Mr. McGuire noted that some specific charges are required, but the courts have never determined how specific they must be, enabling governors “to use the removal power as a club to force resignations.”
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