WATERTOWN, New York (WWNY) -Politics used to be simple.
You’d start to pay attention sometime after Labor Day, and could safely stop paying attention sometime in mid-November. The details were only for the pros and the obsessed, who treated politics with the same reverance most people reserve for sports.
Those days are officially long gone.
2021 was more proof of that – it was another year of always-on, 24 hour a day, what’s going to happen next, hold your breath politics. Three things fueled the year – the Capitol riots of January 6, Andrew Cuomo’s stunning falling from power and, of course, Covid, Covid, Covid.
To unpack the year, start with January 6.
Remember what happened – thousands of peeople showed up in Washington to protest the results of the presidential election, and some of them went a step further. They tried to overturn the results of the election and keep President Trump in office by invading the Capitol and stopping congress from certifying the results of the election.
North country congresswoman Elise Stefanik was in the capitol when it was breached.
“This was certainly unprecedented,” she said right after police gained the upper hand at the Capitol.
“This was not a normal day.”
Yet Stefanik was one of more than a hundred Republicans who, just hours after the rioters had been turned away from the capitol, would continue to object to the election. She specifically objected to the outcome in Pennsylvania, and would have joined in objections in three other states where the vote was somewhat close.
“Tens of millions of Americans are concerned that the 2020 election featured unconstitutional overreach by unelected state officials,” she said on the floor of the House of Representatives that night.
It was the start of a big year for the four term Republican.
Almost immediately, word started circulating that Stefanik was a candidate to replace congresswoman Liz Cheney as number three in Republican leadership in the House. Cheney had the temerity to refuse to go along with Trump’s claim the election was stolen – an unforgivable sin to Trump, and thus to many Republicans.
Cheney survived one vote of “no confidence” in February, but by May, she was out and Stefanik was in. At the press conference after she got the job, Stefanik made it clear where her loyalties lie.
“I support President Trump. Voters support President Trump. He is an important voice in our Republican Party,” she said.
Stefanik had lots of targets in 2021, including Andrew Cuomo. She wanted Cuomo driven from office, arrested and put behind bars.
She got part of her wish.
Throughout the long pandemic year of 2020, Cuomo flourished as the anti-Trump. For a lot of people, Cuomo’s daily briefings on COVID were the rational counterpoint to President Trump. There was the requisite amount of media fawning over Cuomo, a politician who – up until COVID- had been much more feared than loved in Albany.
Turns out, it was mostly façade, and Cuomo’s Republican critics were largely right about him.
Cuomo was knocked out by two political death blows; first, a long-simmering scandal in which the Cuomo administration under-reported the number of nursing home deaths from COVID.
Second, and much more consequentially, nearly a dozen women came forward to say Cuomo sexually harassed them. The details varied, but the overall impression left was a 60 plus years old governor coming on to women less than half his age.
Cuomo tried to tough it out.
“I never touched anyone inappropriately, or made inappropriate sexual advances,” he declared, more than once.
But a report from Attorney General Letitia James in August was damning. It concluded Cuomo had, in fact, “sexually harassed current and former New York state employees.”
A few days later, with Republicans calling for his head and no Democrat of consequence defending him, Cuomo bowed to the inevitable and resigned. Lieutenant Governor Kathy Hochul became the state’s first female governor, and the first governor from upstate in a long time.
Hochul promptly declared “We’ll focus on open, ethical governing that New Yorkers will trust.” But even as she took control, the Cuomo scandal claimed more victims – Cuomo’s brother Chris lost his high profile job at CNN because he had been secretly serving as an advisor to the governor; the head of the SUNY college system, James Malatras, resigned after emails and texts from him surfaced in which he attacked one of Cuomo’s female accusers; Cuomo’s health commissioner resigned as more details emerged about COVID in nursing homes.
COVID was clearly the third force shaping politics in 2021. Nobody wanted another year of restrictions, even as the Delta variant threatened to overwhelm health care workers and hospitals.
When Jefferson County legislature chair Scott Gray declared a mask requirement at the end of the year, he briefly faced rebellion from more than half the legislature. They abandoned plans for a special meeting to roll back the mask requirement and censure Gray only after Governor Hochul imposed a statewide mask or vaccine mandate.
Earlier in the year, Gray and two other veteran legislators, District 7 legislator John Peck and District 3 legislator Phil Reed, faced primary challenges. They all won, but the mere fact of the challenges exposed deep divisions on the legislature.
Reed toyed with the idea of becoming legislature chair – Gray is not running again – but ultimately decided against it. Bill Johnson, the legislator who represents the towns of Lyme and Brownville, quickly emerged as the leading candidate to replace Gray. As one legislator put it, “He’s a calming influence.” Johnson got the job, with legislator Patrick Jareo as vice-chair.
The Watertown city council is also changing. Lisa Ruggiero was re-elected, but she’ll be joined by two newcomers to the council (though not to city politics), Cliff Olney and Pat Hickey. That means the balance of power will shift subtly, since Ruggiero and the two newcomers are expected to vote together on many city issues.
The Ogdensburg city council did not change, meaning a badly divided city government remains divided. Incumbents Dan Scamperle, Nichole Kennedy and Mike Powers – who often vote together in opposition to the majority led by Mayor Mike Skelly – were re-elected.
As 2021 came to a close, Skelly won a personal victory; a judge decided he was not guilty of harassment in a scuffle outside city hall.
The judge ruled that the prosecution failed to prove their case when they accused Skelly of shoving then-firefighter Gerald Mack to the ground while the mayor was entering city hall for a council meeting.
St. Lawrence County voters picked Republican Andrew Moses as their new family court judge. Family court ordinarily doesn’t get a lot of attention, but Moses takes the bench at a consequential time. The county’s Department of Social Services has been under fire for its handling of foster care cases.
Looking ahead, 2022 will be 2021 on steroids – we elect a governor, some key local offices, state representatives and a member of congress. Somehow, Stefanik – who has won the district by overwhelming to very overwhelming (is there such a thing?) margins – has four Democratic and one Republican opponent.
Plus, the political maps are being redrawn, which means whoever represents you in the state assembly, senate or congress could change.
The TL/DR version? 2022 = busy, very busy. Stay tuned.
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