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State Comptroller Alan Hevesi, who managed to be re-elected this past November after an ethics commission found that he violated state law by using state employees to chauffeur his sick wife over the year, is said to be looking to resign shortly as part of a plea agreement. The Albany County DA has been investigating Hevesi's actions, and the possibility of an indictment was in the air; the plea would allow Hevesi to avoid prison time. While the DA's office says no deal is in the works, a Democratic official said that Hevesi made the decision yesterday afternoon, but may not have told Albany County DA David Soares.
This is a long way from Hevesi's earlier, defiant remarks that he would not be removed from office, especially after voters had re-elected him knowing about his transgressions (which he did call a "stupid mistake"). Hevesi's resignation, though, would make things a lot easier for Governor-elect Eliot Spitzer, who rescinded his support of the embattled state comptroller when "Driving Mrs. Hevesi" news broke, and Assembly Leader Sheldon Silver, who supported Hevesi - it's better that Democrats Spitzer and Silver start off the year without an albatross like figuring Hevesi's fate.
Photograph of Hevesi during last an October debate by Keith Bradford/AP
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Why should he be removed from office when the voters clearly said we don’t care about what he did?
if you worked in a restaurant and stole from the register, your co-workers might be fine with it... but management would have you on the street in two seconds.
i don't think you can say with authority that voters "didn't care" – they just either didn't care enough or didn't like their options any better. it doesn't make the act any less wrong.
Or that they [the public] did know, and still voted him in. However, due to pressure from Spitzer and probably other pols who want him punished (to set the stage for the new administration-- that even if you're in our party, you can still be punished for what you've done) he may just be forced into such a corner to consider resigning instead of being indicted instead.
Hopefully not.
Or that the public views it as a political hit job and the actual details involved having been blown way out of proportion by political frenzy.
Or not. People wanted to impeach an American president for lying about his private sexcapades but stealing by elected officials is okay.
Right.
Well maybe if it was actually stealing. But it isn't. The people wanted to impeach a president for lying under oath. It was still a terrible waste of impeachment proceedings. Just like the Libby prosecution is a waste. Just like the impeachment murmurs over Bush supposedly lying about Iraq.
Now the person who should really be getting prosecuted for serious and damaging theft is Sandy Berger. But on that? Barely a whisper.
The Hevesi "scandal" is nonsense. If you are willing to view it through the same eyes as you look at Clinton being impeached over sexscapades then it would be clear what a trumped up load of political theater this whole investigation has been.
Sorry, Sozekirai, but the greatest crime of our lifetimes is Bush lying about WMDs in order to send us off to war in Iraq. He should be impeached and tried for treason.
He wasn't exactly tripping over himself to pay back the city for those limo rides until someone called him on it. I call that a misappropriation of government funds/resources, pure and simple.
Is he the only one doing it? Of course not. Does that excuse it? Again, no. The answer is that all elected officials behaving in this manner should be ousted, not that we should set the bar low and accept it as a cost of having a representative democracy.
"Sorry, Sozekirai, but the greatest crime of our lifetimes is Bush lying about WMDs in order to send us off to war in Iraq. He should be impeached and tried for treason."
Sorry but it wasn't a lie. The programs were real. The threat was real. You disagree. That doesn't make it a lie. Not my problem if you have a hard time understanding that.