18 March 2021: How Would Impeachment in New York Work?

Andrew Cuomo says he won't resign. Will NY lawmakers impeach him? Here are the steps

This article reviews how the impeachment of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo will proceed, if and when the state legislature's majority Democratic Party members decide to dump their party's elected state leader. It describes how their partisan biases and 'deep-state' loyalties may protect Governor Cuomo by imposing irrational barriers to his removal from office:

First, the Assembly, the lower house of the legislature, would bring impeachment for a vote, according to the New York State Constitution.

The Assembly has 150 members, and impeachment would have to be passed by 76 of them — a majority.

But practically speaking, it's more complicated than that: Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, D-Bronx, has traditionally only allowed bills to go to a vote if they can pass without Republican support, meaning they would need 76 Democratic votes.

If that happens and passes, state law says Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul would step into the role of governor in an acting capacity until the impeachment process ends or the governor’s term expires. If Cuomo is ultimately convicted and removed, Hochul would replace him through the rest of his term, which runs through 2022.

After an impeachment vote in the Assembly, an impeachment court would be formed from members of the Senate and the seven members of the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court. (A wrinkle here: All seven Court of Appeals members were appointed by Cuomo.)

Both Hochul and temporary Senate president Andrea Stewart-Cousins would be excluded from the impeachment court, as per the Constitution, because both are part of the succession line for governor.

Two-thirds of this impeachment court would have to vote to convict Cuomo to trigger his removal, and the court would also have to decide whether he would be able to run for office again.

There are 62 state senators excluding Stewart-Cousins, plus the seven Court of Appeals judges — a minimum of 46 out of those 69 votes would be needed to convict.

There's much more discussion in the article.