As federal prosecutors unveiled the corruption charges against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, on Thursday, one potentially key figure was about as far removed from the action as she could be.
Gov. Kathy Hochul’s only public event on Thursday was at a high school in the Syracuse area, where she joined teachers and students for a lengthy panel on work force development, even as reporters swarmed, eager for her statement on the charges.
It was a clear example of how Ms. Hochul — an accidental governor first elevated after the resignation of her predecessor amid another scandal — is treading carefully and deliberately as she reckons with the fraught options for how to deal with Mr. Adams, a political ally.
Ms. Hochul has worked closely with Mr. Adams, whose law-and-order approach and business-friendly policies complement her own.
But as investigations and raids of Adams officials accumulated this month, the governor began to moderate her praise of the mayor. That trend continued on Thursday, after prosecutors indicted Mr. Adams on five criminal counts including bribery conspiracy and wire fraud. He has insisted that he is innocent and has said he intends to remain in office while he fights the charges.
Now Ms. Hochul finds herself in an unusual position: Under New York City’s charter, the governor holds the power to remove a mayor.
The decision offers Ms. Hochul, who has been criticized for her leadership and whose approval ratings have plummeted in recent polls, a chance to shatter any perception of weakness and distance herself from a mayor under federal indictment.
But it also carries legal and political risks: The removal process is untested and could alienate Mr. Adams’s political base, particularly Black voters, without whom Ms. Hochul’s re-election chances would be diminished, especially if a high-profile Democrat challenges her in a primary.
In a statement on Thursday night, Ms. Hochul kept her options open, declining to call on her ally to step aside while at the same time characterizing the indictment as “the latest in a disturbing pattern of events that has, understandably, contributed to a sense of unease among many New Yorkers.”
She said she would be assessing what to do next and put the onus on Mr. Adams to do the same.
“I expect the mayor to take the next few days to review the situation and find an appropriate path forward to ensure the people of New York City are being well-served by their leaders,” she said. “We must give New Yorkers confidence that there is steady, responsible leadership at every level of government.”
Ms. Hochul has a reputation for being profoundly loyal. Indeed, she has built something of a reputation for her steadfast commitment to allies facing headwinds — including President Biden, whom she stumped for even after his disastrous debate performance, and her former lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, whom she defended in the wake of another federal corruption investigation. (The case against Mr. Benjamin was dismissed by an appellate court last year, but subsequently revived. Its status is uncertain).
But Ms. Hochul’s commitment to Mr. Adams stands apart for the frequency with which it has been tested.
In 2021, with concerns about crime rising in the city, Mr. Adams staked out an iconoclastic position by calling for changes to one of the signature achievements of the newly minted Democratic majority in Albany: criminal justice reforms aimed at making bail laws fairer.
Mr. Adams’s advocacy for changes to the law forced Ms. Hochul, in her first months as governor in 2022, to choose between the Legislature and the mayor. She chose Mr. Adams, putting all of her might behind a push for more judicial discretion on setting bail — enraging some of the very lawmakers she had pledged to collaborate with.
Ms. Hochul emerged that year with a compromise that would increase the number of crimes for which judges could set bail, but Mr. Adams said it did not go far enough. The next year Ms. Hochul took up the charge once again, winning even stricter measures in the next budget.
And when the crisis at the southern border arrived on New York’s doorstep, Ms. Hochul answered Mr. Adams’s call with billions of dollars for migrant services.
Ms. Hochul has been eager to stress the benefits of the partnership between herself and the mayor — a marked contrast with the animosity that characterized the relationship between former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio.
But that partnership now puts Ms. Hochul in an awkward position.
In the past week, the city government has been rocked by high-profile resignations, leading some to speculate that if Ms. Hochul does not act to remove Mr. Adams, New Yorkers could come to blame her for the dysfunction.
“People will see the growing chaos of the city government and the problems caused by it, and in understanding that she could have done something about it, will hold her accountable,” said State Senator Liz Krueger, who represents the Upper East Side and leads the Senate Finance Committee.
Evan A. Davis, former counsel to former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, said he had sent Ms. Hochul’s counsel an email Thursday imploring her to immediately begin removal proceedings against Mr. Adams. The question, he said, is whether the mayor has a plausible defense, and hearings should be held to establish that fact.
“The process should begin immediately,” he said. “This is an unsettling moment that puts the city at significant risk.”
But political risks loom. If Mr. Adams were to be removed, his immediate replacement — the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams — and most of the candidates who might run in a special election fall to Ms. Hochul’s ideological left, and might not be as pliable as governing partners.
And then there is Mr. Cuomo, who is rumored to be interested in the job, despite public avowals to the contrary.
Ms. Hochul first arrived in Albany as Mr. Cuomo’s lieutenant governor, rising to power after he resigned in the face of a torrent of sexual harassment allegations that he vehemently denies. But since she succeeded Mr. Cuomo, Ms. Hochul’s popularity has plummeted, with a recent Siena College poll finding that just 34 percent of likely voters approved of Ms. Hochul’s performance.
Bradley Tusk, a New York political strategist and venture capitalist, said that Ms. Hochul’s unpopularity could make her unlikely to cross Mr. Adams, particularly given the mayor’s casting of the charges against him as a racially motivated attack.
“We have seen politicians in other cities get indicted on similar charges and still survive them or least not have to resign,” Mr. Tusk said, adding, “She is in a tenuous position.”
Others saw in that uncertainty an opportunity for Ms. Hochul to once again try to rebuild the vastly depleted public trust.
Ana María Archila, a leader of the progressive Working Families Party, believes that Ms. Hochul ought to remove Mr. Adams.
“When people see their leaders act with moral clarity, that feeds the trust that is necessary for the relationship between government and people,” she said.
And while legal experts agree that the City Charter grants Ms. Hochul the power to remove a mayor, there is little precedent for what that process could look like.
A mayor of New York City has never been removed by the governor. The closest precedent occurred in 1931, when Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed to remove Mayor Jimmy Walker.
The matter was never formally tested, however: Fourteen days of hearings were held, but Mr. Walker eventually resigned and moved to Europe.
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