Mayor Mike Spano took to Twitter on Friday, January 6th to support the nomination of Hector LaSalle to the New York State Court of Appeals. This support comes as LaSalle is facing strong headwinds against his nomination from no fewer than 14 senators. A majority of 32 are needed to confirm him as Chief Justice of the state’s highest court.
Among those senators already publicly against LaSalle is Shelley Mayer of the 37th district. Mayer and Spano have an oppositional history dating back well over a decade. In 2006, Democrat Mayer launched a failed bid to unseat Republican incumbent Spano. Later, in 2011, Spano switched parties and blocked Mayer from any mayoral ambitious she may have had. Mayer instead ran again and this time won a seat in the State Assembly. She then entered the Senate in 2018.
Yonkers’ other senator, Andrea Stewart-Cousins has not yet made her decision on LaSalle public. As the Majority Leader, she states that she is committed to seeing the nomination process conducted as-usual. However, in a recent interview, she was clear that the writing was on the wall.
“I’ve had 14 members come out publicly & say they were not going to confirm the nominee & I’ve had a number tell me privately they are not going to confirm the nominee, I do not see this ending in the way that the Governor wished it would.”
Andrea Stewart-Cousins
Whether Mike Spano‘s comment on LaSalle was done in earnest support of this controversial judge, or if it was posturing to set himself apart from Mayer and others is unknown. However, if there was any doubt that Spano’s flavor of a Democratic politician is very different than Mayer’s, this tweet serves to remove it.
