I was shocked to read Councilman James Gennaro’s lame defense of the City Council’s deplorable treatment of a decent man, Randy Mastro, Mayor Adams’ nominee to become the City’s top lawyer. I was there for Mastro’s confirmation hearing last week, and what the Council did that day will live in infamy.
Mastro’s appointment requires the City Council’s “advice and consent,” and therein lies the rub. Rather than exercise that authority responsibly and in the best interest of the City, the Council turned Mastro’s confirmation hearing into a hit job aimed squarely at the Mayor.
It was an orchestrated affair. Under the watchful eye of Speaker Adrienne Adams, Council members, one after another, read from prepared scripts, berating and, in Gennaro’s case, even screaming at Randy. Why?
Well, supposedly, because he served in the Giuliani administration three decades ago, and he has had enormous success since in private practice, sometimes for controversial clients, oftentimes suing the city. For 8 1/2 straight hours, Randy had to endure the Council’s abuse. That has to be a record.
And all the while, the overflow crowd of more than 50 supporters who showed up to testify on his behalf — including a former governor, other former top public officials, and prominent judges and lawyers — were kept waiting well into the evening, most of them staying anyway, outraged by the Council’s conduct.
But as one Council member admitted, she didn’t want to hear from “the people who are here,” only from “regular New Yorkers.”
Throughout the entire hearing, there was not a single question to Randy about how he literally put his life on the line when he served as Deputy Mayor, facing down La Cosa Nostra death threats in order to break the Mob’s stranglehold over the Fulton Fish Market and private carting industry.
And how he spearheaded through landmark legislation providing the most sweeping domestic partnership protections for same-sex couples in the nation at the time.
And how he has since devoted hundreds of hours a year to pro bono civil rights work and community service (like representing peaceful racial justice protesters assaulted by federal authorities in Lafayette Square in June 2020, and as Chair of Citizens Union and Vice Chair of the Legal Aid Society).
And how he is a lifetime Democrat who led Citizens Union in 2020 for the first time in its 120-year history to endorse in a Presidential race, supporting the Biden-Harris ticket.
Because the Council didn’t care about Randy’s extraordinary accomplishments and credentials. As amNewYork Metro editorialized, Council members’ “anger” was “misplaced,” their target was really the Mayor, and they didn’t give Mastro a “fair shot.”
Gennaro somehow tries to blame Mayor Adams for the Council’s misconduct, claiming he shouldn’t have nominated someone the Council didn’t “advise” him to. But he’s got “advice and consent” backwards. The Mayor nominates. The Council confirms.
As Alexander Hamilton explained in The Federalist Papers, the legislature’s “advice and consent” is a check on “bias” and an assurance the candidate is qualified for the job. The one thing it’s not supposed to be about is politics. Otherwise, a President of one party could never get his cabinet confirmed by a Senate majority of the other party.
I know first-hand how this process should work because I’ve been through it multiple times as a member of the City’s Civil Service Commission for more than two decades. I, too, served as a Deputy Mayor in the Giuliani administration, but the Council didn’t block my appointment on that basis. And I know how great a lawyer Randy is because he represented me pro bono when I needed City health benefits after suffering 9/11 injuries and we established a precedent for hundreds of others to get the 9/11-related coverage they deserved.
His success as a lawyer is precisely why the Council should confirm him because now he will be succeeding for all of us. Indeed, many Council members admitted at the hearing that Randy is well-qualified for this job, with one participant even saying he’d like to hire Randy as his personal lawyer. The City deserves no less.
Let’s drop the pretexts, Council members, and get real. This is about the Council’s feud with Mayor Adams. But that’s a sorry excuse for the way it conducted this confirmation hearing. The Council says it wants more “advice and consent” authority over cabinet-level posts. But if this is the way it is going to conduct itself, we should all say “no way.” Get Randy Mastro right, or get out of the way. Because the City would be fortunate, indeed, to have him return to public service in this important legal position.
So to Councilman Gennaro, I say this: I served with Randy Mastro. I know Randy Mastro. Randy Mastro is a friend of mine. And Councilman, you’re no Randy Mastro.
Rudy Washington is a former deputy mayor.
