Need solid path for impeachment

As preparations for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's impeachment grow with his refusal to resign, state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and his Democratic majority are improvising the process.

Heastie and Assemb. Charles Lavine (D-Glen Cove), chairman of the key Judiciary Committee, on Monday outlined a calendar for the weeks ahead that allows for a review of last week's attorney general's report, a new determination of facts by the committee's outside attorneys, expert testimony on impeachment law, and responses from Cuomo.

The process must be expeditious, but most importantly, fair and comprehensive.

The state constitution "provides great leeway, great deference to the members of the Assembly and people who constitute the Court of Impeachment," mainly in the State Senate, Lavine noted. At the same time, Heastie assured New Yorkers that members of the majority "understand the gravity of the situation that we find ourselves in today."

They will be called on to show the public that their vote to impeach or not resulted from a fair read of real evidence. At a crucial moment like this, the law is regrettably vague, as it has been for at least a century.

The lack of specifics in the law about a standard of proof could make a thorough job more challenging. In a criminal trial, the standard is high: beyond a reasonable doubt. In civil law generally, a preponderance of the evidence is needed; a higher standard used in other civil proceedings is a clear and convincing case. Which do you use to remove a governor? That Cuomo has been a forceful governor, elected three times, adds pressure to apply the appropriate standard and make the case against him airtight.

Heastie and Lavine can't strictly play offense. They seem to understand that the process they create to evaluate Cuomo's conduct must be defensible.

New York law gives its Assembly more clout than federal law gives the House of Representatives. Once impeached, a governor, unlike a president, is suspended from his job pending a Senate trial. The lieutenant governor becomes the interim governor while the state Court of Impeachment conducts a trial on the Assembly charges.

The impeachment inquiry should tell us, as promised, whether Cuomo transgressed laws on sexual harassment, the use of state resources to profit from his self-promoting book deal, the misstating of pandemic-related nursing home information, and suspicions of favoritism in COVID-19 testing.

Cuomo could challenge the impeachment proceedings down the road, perhaps ultimately at the Court of Appeals, where all seven appointees were nominated by him.

Replacing an elected executive with his simultaneously elected lieutenant would be the boldest independent action the State Legislature has taken in Albany in a very long time. As Heastie put it Monday: "Future generations will look to us and how we conducted ourselves in this moment."

That means he and his colleagues get one chance to do it right.