Former governor Andrew Cuomo, now running as an Independent for mayor of New York City, speaks during a campaign event at A. Philip Randolph Senior Citizen Center, on October 27, 2025 in New York City.
The Disgrace of an Ex-Governor: Andrew Cuomo of New York
A story about another former Republican governor, Charles Evans Hughes—who defended the rights of socialists even though he was not one himself—offers an important contrast when it comes to Cuomo, as unprincipled as any man can be.
The entire country will be watching as New Yorkers go to the polls tomorrow to elect the new mayor of the city. Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim-American democratic socialist whose meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic field has made him the front runner, is a dynamic, young, and progressive candidate who symbolizes both vigorous resistance to Trumpism and the possibility of meaningful social democratic policy innovation. He has campaigned brilliantly, and his victory would be all but assured were it not for the sour grapes, independent candidacy of the disgraced ex-Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, long a self-serving bully willing to practice gutter politics in order to win at all costs, has waged a ruthless campaign, seeking to link Mamdani to 9-11 and Hamas and red-baiting him as a “far-left” socialist who would destroy both the Democratic party and the city itself.
Cuomo’s current campaign would be pathetic if it weren’t so polarizing, toxic, and downright reactionary.
A little over a century ago, another New York ex-Governor also decided to enter the political fray to address the challenges posed to New York by socialists. But he was a man of principle willing to stand against red-baiting, at a time in which it was even more prevalent than it is today, in the age of Trump—and that is saying a lot.
Charles Evans Hughes, unlike Cuomo, had not been driven from office by scandal. Elected Governor in 1906, he chose to step down in 1910 to accept his nomination, quickly confirmed, as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, where he served for six years before stepping down again, this time to accept the 1916 Republican presidential nomination. It was after losing that election to Woodrow Wilson, and returning to private practice as an attorney, that Hughes came forward to vigorously defend the rights of socialists and of the Socialist Party.
In 1920, the Great War had recently ended, the Wilson administration had prosecuted and decimated the Socialist party, Gene Debs was behind bars—from where he ran for president–and the first Red Scare was in full swing. In New York state, the Lusk Committee—the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities—was working overtime to infiltrate, harass, and arrest a wide range of organizations on the left, including the Socialist party and the newly-formed Communist party. As Adam Hochschild has documented in American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, it was a time of violent suppression of civil liberties and a hostility toward the left that severely compromised even the rudiments of constitutional democracy.
That year, five Socialists who had been elected to the New York State Assembly were summarily suspended by their peers, by a vote of 140 to 6, on the grounds that they were members of a dangerous organization that had opposed the war, supported the Russian Revolution, and was in thrall to an “invisible alien empire” bent on world revolution.
It was then that Hughes stepped forward to defend the Socialists in the name of the Constitution and democracy itself.
In an open letter addressed to the Assembly Speaker, Hughes declared that “It is not in accordance with the spirit of our institutions, but on the contrary, it is absolutely opposed to the fundamental principles of our Government, for a majority to undertake to deny representation to a minority through its representatives elected by ballots lawfully cast.” If individual members of the Socialist Party were considered guilty of actual crimes, Hughes held, then “let every resource of inquiry, of pursuit, of prosecution, be employed to ferret out and punish the guilty according to our laws.” But, noting that no such inquiry had been pursued, and the evidence of criminality was nonexistent, he insisted that to suppress “masses of our citizens combined for political action, by denying them the only resource of peaceful government,” is both foolish and wrong. Hughes continued: “I speak as one utterly opposed to Socialism and in entire sympathy with every effort to put down violence and crime. But it is because I am solicitous to maintain the peaceful processes essential to democracy that I am anxious to see Socialists as well as Republicans and Democrats enjoy their political rights.”
In response to widespread public outcry, Assembly leaders finally agreed to conduct an actual hearing, as the rules required, which quickly concluded with the official expulsion of the Socialists. (The proceedings are recorded in Albany: The Crisis in Government, edited by Louis Waldman, one of the five. This is a very interesting and important text that ought to be more widely known).
Hughes’s powerful appeal to democratic principle went unheeded, and when he sought to speak against the expulsions at the Assembly hearing–this time as head of a New York Bar Association committee established to challenge the expulsions–he was indeed prevented from speaking. But he had taken a principled stand against a politics of vituperation and demonization, and on behalf of freedom of expression and political pluralism.
Hughes had no personal stake in the controversy about the exclusion of the Socialist legislators and the veritable banning of their party. Yet he believed himself to have a stake in democracy. And taking the position that he did placed him at odds not only with many in his party, but with the propaganda-infused consensus of the society at large. For while he was not part of the “political minority” of Socialists whose rights he defended, he was very much in the minority for even taking the rights of the Socialists seriously.
Hughes was a man of principle. And while his challenge of the Socialists’ expulsion from the New York state Assembly failed, he went on to serve as US Secretary of State, from 1921-1925, in the Republican administration of Warren Harding (who commuted Debs’s prison sentence), and then as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1930-1941.
Cuomo is as unprincipled as any man can be.
If he is able to win this week’s election, he will have joined his nemesis-turned-ally, Donald Trump, in furthering a politics of Know Nothing reaction and anti-socialist fear-mongering.
New York City deserves better, and American politics deserves better.
And Cuomo? He deserves to be remembered as a thug whose loss in tomorrow’s election was the final nail in the coffin of a career marked by arrogance, scandal and disgrace.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, The U.S. is on a fast track to authoritarianism like nothing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, corporate news outlets are utterly capitulating to Trump, twisting their coverage to avoid drawing his ire while lining up to stuff cash in his pockets. That's why I believe that Common Dreams is doing the best and most consequential reporting that we've ever done. Our small but mighty team is a progressive reporting powerhouse, covering the news every day that the corporate media never will. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. And to ignite change for the common good. Now here's the key piece that I want all our readers to understand: None of this would be possible without your financial support. That's not just some fundraising cliche. It's the absolute and literal truth. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. Will you donate now to help power the nonprofit, independent reporting of Common Dreams? Thank you for being a vital member of our community. Together, we can keep independent journalism alive when it’s needed most. - Craig Brown, Co-founder |
The entire country will be watching as New Yorkers go to the polls tomorrow to elect the new mayor of the city. Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim-American democratic socialist whose meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic field has made him the front runner, is a dynamic, young, and progressive candidate who symbolizes both vigorous resistance to Trumpism and the possibility of meaningful social democratic policy innovation. He has campaigned brilliantly, and his victory would be all but assured were it not for the sour grapes, independent candidacy of the disgraced ex-Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, long a self-serving bully willing to practice gutter politics in order to win at all costs, has waged a ruthless campaign, seeking to link Mamdani to 9-11 and Hamas and red-baiting him as a “far-left” socialist who would destroy both the Democratic party and the city itself.
Cuomo’s current campaign would be pathetic if it weren’t so polarizing, toxic, and downright reactionary.
A little over a century ago, another New York ex-Governor also decided to enter the political fray to address the challenges posed to New York by socialists. But he was a man of principle willing to stand against red-baiting, at a time in which it was even more prevalent than it is today, in the age of Trump—and that is saying a lot.
Charles Evans Hughes, unlike Cuomo, had not been driven from office by scandal. Elected Governor in 1906, he chose to step down in 1910 to accept his nomination, quickly confirmed, as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, where he served for six years before stepping down again, this time to accept the 1916 Republican presidential nomination. It was after losing that election to Woodrow Wilson, and returning to private practice as an attorney, that Hughes came forward to vigorously defend the rights of socialists and of the Socialist Party.
In 1920, the Great War had recently ended, the Wilson administration had prosecuted and decimated the Socialist party, Gene Debs was behind bars—from where he ran for president–and the first Red Scare was in full swing. In New York state, the Lusk Committee—the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities—was working overtime to infiltrate, harass, and arrest a wide range of organizations on the left, including the Socialist party and the newly-formed Communist party. As Adam Hochschild has documented in American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, it was a time of violent suppression of civil liberties and a hostility toward the left that severely compromised even the rudiments of constitutional democracy.
That year, five Socialists who had been elected to the New York State Assembly were summarily suspended by their peers, by a vote of 140 to 6, on the grounds that they were members of a dangerous organization that had opposed the war, supported the Russian Revolution, and was in thrall to an “invisible alien empire” bent on world revolution.
It was then that Hughes stepped forward to defend the Socialists in the name of the Constitution and democracy itself.
In an open letter addressed to the Assembly Speaker, Hughes declared that “It is not in accordance with the spirit of our institutions, but on the contrary, it is absolutely opposed to the fundamental principles of our Government, for a majority to undertake to deny representation to a minority through its representatives elected by ballots lawfully cast.” If individual members of the Socialist Party were considered guilty of actual crimes, Hughes held, then “let every resource of inquiry, of pursuit, of prosecution, be employed to ferret out and punish the guilty according to our laws.” But, noting that no such inquiry had been pursued, and the evidence of criminality was nonexistent, he insisted that to suppress “masses of our citizens combined for political action, by denying them the only resource of peaceful government,” is both foolish and wrong. Hughes continued: “I speak as one utterly opposed to Socialism and in entire sympathy with every effort to put down violence and crime. But it is because I am solicitous to maintain the peaceful processes essential to democracy that I am anxious to see Socialists as well as Republicans and Democrats enjoy their political rights.”
In response to widespread public outcry, Assembly leaders finally agreed to conduct an actual hearing, as the rules required, which quickly concluded with the official expulsion of the Socialists. (The proceedings are recorded in Albany: The Crisis in Government, edited by Louis Waldman, one of the five. This is a very interesting and important text that ought to be more widely known).
Hughes’s powerful appeal to democratic principle went unheeded, and when he sought to speak against the expulsions at the Assembly hearing–this time as head of a New York Bar Association committee established to challenge the expulsions–he was indeed prevented from speaking. But he had taken a principled stand against a politics of vituperation and demonization, and on behalf of freedom of expression and political pluralism.
Hughes had no personal stake in the controversy about the exclusion of the Socialist legislators and the veritable banning of their party. Yet he believed himself to have a stake in democracy. And taking the position that he did placed him at odds not only with many in his party, but with the propaganda-infused consensus of the society at large. For while he was not part of the “political minority” of Socialists whose rights he defended, he was very much in the minority for even taking the rights of the Socialists seriously.
Hughes was a man of principle. And while his challenge of the Socialists’ expulsion from the New York state Assembly failed, he went on to serve as US Secretary of State, from 1921-1925, in the Republican administration of Warren Harding (who commuted Debs’s prison sentence), and then as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1930-1941.
Cuomo is as unprincipled as any man can be.
If he is able to win this week’s election, he will have joined his nemesis-turned-ally, Donald Trump, in furthering a politics of Know Nothing reaction and anti-socialist fear-mongering.
New York City deserves better, and American politics deserves better.
And Cuomo? He deserves to be remembered as a thug whose loss in tomorrow’s election was the final nail in the coffin of a career marked by arrogance, scandal and disgrace.
The entire country will be watching as New Yorkers go to the polls tomorrow to elect the new mayor of the city. Zohran Mamdani, the Muslim-American democratic socialist whose meteoric rise to the top of the Democratic field has made him the front runner, is a dynamic, young, and progressive candidate who symbolizes both vigorous resistance to Trumpism and the possibility of meaningful social democratic policy innovation. He has campaigned brilliantly, and his victory would be all but assured were it not for the sour grapes, independent candidacy of the disgraced ex-Governor, Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo, long a self-serving bully willing to practice gutter politics in order to win at all costs, has waged a ruthless campaign, seeking to link Mamdani to 9-11 and Hamas and red-baiting him as a “far-left” socialist who would destroy both the Democratic party and the city itself.
Cuomo’s current campaign would be pathetic if it weren’t so polarizing, toxic, and downright reactionary.
A little over a century ago, another New York ex-Governor also decided to enter the political fray to address the challenges posed to New York by socialists. But he was a man of principle willing to stand against red-baiting, at a time in which it was even more prevalent than it is today, in the age of Trump—and that is saying a lot.
Charles Evans Hughes, unlike Cuomo, had not been driven from office by scandal. Elected Governor in 1906, he chose to step down in 1910 to accept his nomination, quickly confirmed, as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, where he served for six years before stepping down again, this time to accept the 1916 Republican presidential nomination. It was after losing that election to Woodrow Wilson, and returning to private practice as an attorney, that Hughes came forward to vigorously defend the rights of socialists and of the Socialist Party.
In 1920, the Great War had recently ended, the Wilson administration had prosecuted and decimated the Socialist party, Gene Debs was behind bars—from where he ran for president–and the first Red Scare was in full swing. In New York state, the Lusk Committee—the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Seditious Activities—was working overtime to infiltrate, harass, and arrest a wide range of organizations on the left, including the Socialist party and the newly-formed Communist party. As Adam Hochschild has documented in American Midnight: The Great War, A Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis, it was a time of violent suppression of civil liberties and a hostility toward the left that severely compromised even the rudiments of constitutional democracy.
That year, five Socialists who had been elected to the New York State Assembly were summarily suspended by their peers, by a vote of 140 to 6, on the grounds that they were members of a dangerous organization that had opposed the war, supported the Russian Revolution, and was in thrall to an “invisible alien empire” bent on world revolution.
It was then that Hughes stepped forward to defend the Socialists in the name of the Constitution and democracy itself.
In an open letter addressed to the Assembly Speaker, Hughes declared that “It is not in accordance with the spirit of our institutions, but on the contrary, it is absolutely opposed to the fundamental principles of our Government, for a majority to undertake to deny representation to a minority through its representatives elected by ballots lawfully cast.” If individual members of the Socialist Party were considered guilty of actual crimes, Hughes held, then “let every resource of inquiry, of pursuit, of prosecution, be employed to ferret out and punish the guilty according to our laws.” But, noting that no such inquiry had been pursued, and the evidence of criminality was nonexistent, he insisted that to suppress “masses of our citizens combined for political action, by denying them the only resource of peaceful government,” is both foolish and wrong. Hughes continued: “I speak as one utterly opposed to Socialism and in entire sympathy with every effort to put down violence and crime. But it is because I am solicitous to maintain the peaceful processes essential to democracy that I am anxious to see Socialists as well as Republicans and Democrats enjoy their political rights.”
In response to widespread public outcry, Assembly leaders finally agreed to conduct an actual hearing, as the rules required, which quickly concluded with the official expulsion of the Socialists. (The proceedings are recorded in Albany: The Crisis in Government, edited by Louis Waldman, one of the five. This is a very interesting and important text that ought to be more widely known).
Hughes’s powerful appeal to democratic principle went unheeded, and when he sought to speak against the expulsions at the Assembly hearing–this time as head of a New York Bar Association committee established to challenge the expulsions–he was indeed prevented from speaking. But he had taken a principled stand against a politics of vituperation and demonization, and on behalf of freedom of expression and political pluralism.
Hughes had no personal stake in the controversy about the exclusion of the Socialist legislators and the veritable banning of their party. Yet he believed himself to have a stake in democracy. And taking the position that he did placed him at odds not only with many in his party, but with the propaganda-infused consensus of the society at large. For while he was not part of the “political minority” of Socialists whose rights he defended, he was very much in the minority for even taking the rights of the Socialists seriously.
Hughes was a man of principle. And while his challenge of the Socialists’ expulsion from the New York state Assembly failed, he went on to serve as US Secretary of State, from 1921-1925, in the Republican administration of Warren Harding (who commuted Debs’s prison sentence), and then as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1930-1941.
Cuomo is as unprincipled as any man can be.
If he is able to win this week’s election, he will have joined his nemesis-turned-ally, Donald Trump, in furthering a politics of Know Nothing reaction and anti-socialist fear-mongering.
New York City deserves better, and American politics deserves better.
And Cuomo? He deserves to be remembered as a thug whose loss in tomorrow’s election was the final nail in the coffin of a career marked by arrogance, scandal and disgrace.