Top Cuomo officials worked to gin up union support for Brad Hoylman’s run for Manhattan Borough President
ALBANY — High-ranking Cuomo administration officials attempted to drum up union support for New York State Sen. Brad Hoylman’s bid to become the next Manhattan Borough President, the Daily News has learned.
Multiple sources confirmed that calls were made on Hoylman’s behalf by Gov. Cuomo’s top aide Melissa DeRosa and others.
A few labor officials were left scratching their heads by the move since some of the calls came as the governor faced criticisms over his handling of COVID deaths in nursing homes and shortly before Hoylman joined other pols in publicly calling on Cuomo to resign amid sexual harassment allegations.
Insiders said the initial endorsement push pre-dated Cuomo’s current political fallout, with calls made in January and February as the borough president race began to gain steam.
One source with knowledge of the situation said it made sense for the governor’s allies to try to gin up endorsements for Hoylman given the senator’s competition includes one of Cuomo’s accusers, Lindsey Boylan, as well as City Councilman Mark Levine.
Boylan is a former Cuomo adviser whose claims that the governor made inappropriate comments and once kissed her without her consent led to several other women, including other current and former staffers, accusing the state’s top Democrat of misconduct.
Longtime Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf said he wasn’t surprised by the behind-the-scenes support for Hoylman.
“It’s very frequent that what we see in public is not what’s really going on,” Sheinkopf said. “Politics is a business of self.”
While Hoylman has the backing of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, the United Federation of Teachers and the Uniformed Firefighters Association, both Levine and fellow term-limited City Councilman Ben Kallos boast the lion’s share of labor endorsements in the race to replace current Manhattan Beep Gale Brewer.
Hoylman, who did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Sunday, currently represents a district that stretches across parts of Midtown, through Chelsea down to the East Village. First elected to the Senate in 2012, he is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and has sponsored a number of high-profile bills in recent years including the Child Victims Act.
One source said relations between the senator and governor have soured since Hoylman called on Cuomo to resign and then came out against plans to redevelop the blocks around Penn Station.
“Back in January Hoylman asked for a personal attestment to some in the labor movement about his effectiveness as a legislator and given the work we’ve done together on surrogacy, the child victims’ act and other measures, we were happy to do it,” a person close to the governor’s camp said. “This had nothing to do with the governor and there’s been no movement or effort since then.”
While the Cuomo camp has considerable weight with unions, the members of some of the labor groups that were contacted have more of a relationship with Levine and Kallos, another source said.
That may have tipped the endorsement scales in favor of Levine, who represents a stretch of northern Manhattan where more dues-paying union workers are likely to live. District Council 37, Local 153 OPEIU and the AFL-CIO New York City Central Labor Council all backed Levine.
“At the end of the day, I think the union leaders and their membership knew that Mark would be the best borough president to work with them and represent their needs,” said Levine campaign spokeswoman Erica Vladimer.
