As Cuomo Rallies for Abortion Rights, Nixon Questions His Bona Fides

ALBANY, N.Y. — Ever since Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, Gov. Andrew Cuomo has held rallies, issued statements and signed an executive order, all in the interest, he said, of protecting access to reproductive rights that could be at risk under a Supreme Court poised to lean further to the right.

In doing so, Cuomo, who faces a re-election primary battle in September, continues to position himself as a liberal bulwark to the Trump administration.

He has called on the state Legislature to return to Albany to pass a bill, the Reproductive Health Act, that would codify the right to an abortion in state law.

But some Democrats in New York, especially his primary rival, Cynthia Nixon, have suggested the governor’s long tolerance of anti-abortion Senate Republicans in Albany, and a renegade group of Democrats they collaborated with, has badly undercut his feminist bona fides.

That dichotomy was in stark relief Tuesday as the governor staged a pair of “reproductive rights” rallies in New York City suburbs, even as Nixon campaigned in lower Manhattan with a female group of insurgent Democratic candidates “to save Roe v. Wade and fight against President Trump’s pick.”

Cuomo went first, telling a crowd in Yonkers that he would fight the “extreme conservative administration” in Washington, and push state lawmakers to act.

“We do not have a New York state law that provides the protections of Roe v. Wade,” said Cuomo, 60, noting the state “desperately needs” to take the procedure out of its criminal code and instead deal with it in public health laws.

Nixon on Tuesday posted a sharp-elbowed video that interspersed her own advocacy for women’s rights with several remarks by the governor. Those remarks included a joke Monday in which he said that God told him he was a feminist “when he gave me three daughters”; a comment from December in which he said a female Albany reporter did “a disservice to women” for asking about sexual harassment; and a cringe-worthy exchange at the 2016 State Fair involving Cuomo, a female reporter and a sausage sandwich.

Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for the Cuomo campaign, responded by saying that “Cynthia Nixon can produce and star in as many silly, fact-free videos as she wants,” adding “the governor is focused on uniting Democrats to fight against Donald Trump and his destructive anti-woman agenda.”

Cuomo blames the lack of progress for the Reproductive Health Act on the state Senate, which would not pass a bill that has long-standing support in the Democrat-dominated Assembly.

“They want to have it both ways,” Cuomo argued Tuesday, saying some Senate Republicans claim they support abortion rights, but end up opposing the bill. “What we have to say is, ‘No more.'”

The governor’s office cites repeated mentions by Cuomo over the years of the need for such a codification of Roe v. Wade in state law, including a 2013 package of bills — the Women’s Equality Act — which also included that measure and died in the Senate.

Such explanations, however, have done little to appease supporters of Nixon, who is running to the left of Cuomo, who has been a centrist for much of his four decades in politics. They note that Cuomo did not expend any political capital for the bill during the legislative session that ended in June, and that, in years past, he had often worked closely with Republicans in the Senate and the members of the Independent Democratic Conference, Democrats who helped Republicans maintain control in that chamber.

“Every year for eight years, Andrew Cuomo has claimed to be a champion of reproductive freedom. Every year for eight years, he’s failed to deliver,” said Karen Scharff, a leader of New York Working Families Party, which endorsed Nixon in April. “Why? Because it was more important to keep Republicans in power and keep taxes on his wealthy donors low than it was to protect our rights.”

The battle over the Reproductive Health Act also flared during the closing days of the legislative session as Democrats tried to force consideration of the bill, in large part to see how several moderate Republicans might vote. Republicans bristled at the parliamentary maneuvers, including the appearance in the Senate chambers of Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul — a Democrat and potentially a decisive vote in the divided Senate — and Democrats eventually relented.

“Until this April, the Senate hadn’t had the votes to codify Roe v. Wade, in part because there has never been a 100 percent pro-choice Democratic conference until now,” said Dani Lever, the governor’s press secretary. “Anyone serious about protecting reproductive rights should join us and the Senate Democrats to urge the Republicans to put this bill on the floor now; the stakes are too high for self-serving election year games.” Republicans hold a razor-thin majority in the state Senate thanks to a rogue Democrat, Sen. Simcha Felder of Brooklyn, who also opposes abortion. And on Monday, a spokeswoman for John J. Flanagan, the Republican Senate majority leader, blasted the governor as being “so frightened of Cynthia Nixon that he’s drinking the political Kool-Aid served by radicals and socialists who now control the Democratic Party.”

The spokeswoman, Candice Giove, added that Cuomo had not engaged “with people who have valid concerns regarding the Reproductive Health Act, including nondoctors performing abortions or watering down criminal charges faced if an abuser harms a pregnant woman.”

The issue has also become a talking point in a number of Democratic primary challenges against former members of the IDC, which collaborated with the Senate Republicans for more than seven years, starting at the beginning of the governor’s first term in 2011.

Although the group dissolved in April under an agreement announced by Cuomo, that has done little to quell the Democratic insurgents, who were given a spiritual boost last month when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won a surprise victory over Rep. Joseph Crowley in a congressional district that includes parts of the Bronx and Queens.

On Tuesday afternoon, five of those challengers descended on Union Square to campaign with Nixon, who has argued that Cuomo’s rallies and executive orders are little more than publicity stunts. Standing in the blazing sun, amid signs reading “My Body, My Choice,” and “A Woman’s Place is in your Face,” Nixon — holding a wire hanger — said that her mother had had an illegal abortion.

“We must never, ever, ever, go back to a time when any woman feels she has to make this kind of a choice,” Nixon said. “And this is why we must fight.”

For her part, Sen. Liz Kreuger, the bill’s sponsor, said in an interview that she wants to make sure the state safeguards women’s rights under Roe v. Wade before it is too late. On Monday, Trump nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh, a conservative stalwart, to replace Kennedy on the Supreme Court, fueling speculation that the landmark privacy ruling could be reversed.

“We went from if to when,” Krueger said of the possible overturning of the 1973 decision. “And that ‘when’ is getting closer and closer.”