WASHINGTON (AP) – Kirsten Gillibrand was the first Democratic senator to call for the resignation of her colleague Al Franken in 2017 because he faced allegations of sexual misconduct and built a profile as a leading advocate for women, which took center stage of its presidential bid in 2020.
But the New York senator is taking a different tactic when it comes to closer home sexual harassment allegations against her state’s Democratic governor Andrew Cuomo.
In a series of statements, Gillibrand has said that Cuomo’s allegations of offensive behavior are “serious and deeply troubling” and that the three women “who have come forward have shown tremendous courage.” She has said the claims against Cuomo are “completely unacceptable” and called for a full investigation – but she did not demand his resignation.
Top Democrats in New York and nationally have also not proposed resigning Cuomo. So are the senior New York senator and the majority leader of the chamber, Democrat Chuck Schumer. It is a much more cautious approach than the parade of Democratic senators who followed Gillibrand in calling for Franks’ resignation.
That fuels the question of whether, more than three years after the #MeToo movement, the pressure to hold powerful men accountable for sexual harassment and abuse is losing momentum. Gillibrand paid a political price for her role in Franken’s resignation, and her tone towards Cuomo may reflect that.
“Our country needs to do better for big women,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, executive director of Women’s March, an advocacy group spawned from the January 2017 rally when tens of thousands of women, most dressed in pink, came down on Washington. to protest against Donald Trump’s presidency. “Both parties and at every level of government.”
Franks eventually resigned, but Democrats later wondered if they had gone too fast to oust him. During her presidential campaign, Gillibrand was questioned about her decision and insisted that she did not regret calling on Franks to give up his seat in the Senate. But she acknowledged that this hurt her top donors and hindered her effort to gain a following in the first caucuses in Iowa, which borders Frank’s Minnesota state.
Pete Buttigieg, who essentially took first place in Iowa, has said that when it came to Franks, “he wouldn’t have applied that pressure at the time until we knew more.” The former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is now President Joe Biden’s transportation secretary.
Carmona’s group has gone a step further than Gillibrand and other leading Democrats and called for an investigation against Cuomo, but also demanded his “immediate resignation”, noting that “conduct doesn’t have to be illegal to be disqualifying”.
Cuomo flatly rejected such calls on Wednesday, saying that although he was “embarrassed” by the allegations, he had no intention of resigning.
“I work for the people of New York State,” said the governor, breaking through days of silence at a news conference. “They chose me.”
A Gillibrand spokesman declined to comment on whether the senator was considering calling on Cuomo to resign. But even in 2017, Gillibrand called for an investigation into Franks for weeks and only became the first Democratic senator to step aside when a message surfaced about a seventh woman accusing misconduct.
She has also argued that there was a “double standard” at work, blaming her party for the loss of a once-rising star in Franconia, even though so many Democrats eventually called for his resignation.
“Who is held responsible for Al Franken’s decision to step down? Women senators, including myself, ”said Gillibrand in July 2019, about a month before she left the presidential race. ‘It’s outrageous. It’s absurd. “
She’s not alone in seeing sexism pressured on women to expose alleged misconduct by a man. But Gillibrand has promoted herself as a feminist leader and advocate for women’s rights, and the Cuomo scandal concerns her state.
Gillibrand founded an activist group called Off the Sidelines, which raised millions of dollars to mobilize more women to participate in politics, and for years she enjoyed being sometimes referred to as the ‘#MeToo Senator’.
“We all wish she had more courage at this point, but she’s not the story and she shouldn’t become the story,” said Rebecca Katz, a Democratic adviser in New York City who said to equate Gillibrand with the alleged wrongdoing of her. Cuomo “ misses the whole thing. point.”
Gillibrand has nevertheless seen her national profile decline following her presidential bid.
She campaigned for Biden last fall. But unlike several other Senate colleagues who competed against Biden for the Democratic nomination, Gillibrand was never seriously considered a leading option for being Biden’s running mate, despite his long-standing promise to choose a woman.
54-year-old Gillibrand has been a senator for 12 years and has time to set up another presidential run, although questions about her handling of the scandal involving Franken – and now perhaps even her reaction to Cuomo – may linger.
“We must stop blaming women for harassment by men,” Katz said. “Sen. Gillibrand received a lot of incoming because he had rightly summoned Al Franken many years ago – because he was one of many who summoned Al Franken. We’re doing this wrong.”