Tenants must defeat Andrew Cuomo in his attempt to return to political power
By Michael McKee
Tenants PAC urges you not to rank Andrew Cuomo in the June 24 ranked-choice voting primary.
If Andrew Cuomo becomes Mayor of New York City, regulated and market rents will inflate rapidly, and effective rent regulation will come to an end. Even if Andrew comes out and says that he will support the rent freeze for apartments subject to the vote of the NYC Rent Guidelines Board, he cannot be trusted to deliver that. Andrew is a chronic liar, and many of his top supporters are landlords.
During the 10.5 years Andrew Cuomo was Governor, city and state rent laws came up for renewal in the state legislature three times: in 2011, in 2015, and in 2019. In 2011 and again in 2015, Andrew manipulated the Albany situation to prevent the repeal of Vacancy Decontrol, even though the votes were there in both houses.
Instead, he increased the rents landlords had to reach on stabilized and controlled apartments until they were subject to VD, from $2,000 to $2,500 in 2011, and to $2,700-plus inflation in 2015, and claimed this was a great tenant victory. But it was meaningless, a symbolic move that would go totally unenforced by his administration. Andrew cost us tens of thousands of regulated apartments by these changes.
Tenants won full repeal of Vacancy Decontrol in June 2019, plus many other sweeping pro-tenant improvements in state and NYC rent laws. This happened because we persuaded Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins to negotiate the renewal bill by themselves, and exclude Andrew from the negotiations knowing that he would water the deal down to benefit his real estate supporters.
Andrew reacted angrily, and threatened to veto any bill they negotiated without him. He quickly realized a veto was politically deadly to him, and immediately changed his message to “I will sign any bill they send to my desk.” But he kept raising doubts about Andrea’s ability to assemble the 32 votes necessary to pass the bill. He kept telling reporters that “she doesn’t have the votes.”
Andrew’s history on housing
I have dealt with Andrew since 1982, when I and other tenant activists supported his father Mario Cuomo in his first run for governor. Andrew was 24 years old in 1982; he ran his father’s campaign that year, and was disliked by just about everyone who came in contact with him.
After the 1992 election Andrew became active with newly elected President Bill Clinton and in Clinton’s second term beginning in 1996, Clinton appointed Andrew Secretary of the U.S. Dept. of Housing and Urban Development, where he had been a deputy in the first term. Andrew’s four years as HUD Secretary (1997-2001) were nothing short of disastrous in terms of tenants’ rights and affordable housing. He and Clinton changed policy to allow landlords who had accepted Section 8 vouchers to refuse to accept them when it came time for tenants to renew their leases; tens of thousands of evictions resulted.
After Clinton was replaced by George W. Bush, Andrew returned to New York State suburbs and ran for Governor in the 2002 Democratic Primary, entering late after State Comptroller and former State Senator Carl McCall had lined up most support as the first Black candidate for Governor. A very awkward situation for Andrew, who handled it badly and created racial issues within the Democratic Party.
Andrew came for an interview with the Tenants PAC board in the summer of 2002, at Local 802, the musicians’ union. After he left, I told the board members present that he thought he had our endorsement sewed up, even though it was well known that we had a long relationship with Carl and were certain to endorse him, having already interviewed him. The Tenants PAC board members had a hard time understanding why Andrew thought we were going to endorse him.
A few days later after the board voted to endorse Carl McCall, I called Andrew’s campaign manager to inform her of the fact. An hour later she called me back to say that Andrew wanted to know why. SO … I told her. Of course, a few weeks later Andrew withdrew his candidacy and Carl lost the November election to Pataki.
It is most unfortunate that Carl has now endorsed Andrew Cuomo for NYC Mayor.
Andrew made millions of dollars in private equity dealings in the next few years until he lucked into winning the 2006 election for State Attorney General, then he lucked into winning the governor’s race in 2010 after David Paterson, the first Black NYS Governor, was forced out of the race by a series of scandals and clear administrative failures. It is most unfortunate that Paterson is now supporting Andrew for NYC Mayor.
Once he became governor in 2011, our relationship resumed – but only when Andrew wanted me to agree with his moves over rent negotiations in Albany, in 2011 and 2015.
In June 2015 my husband Eric Stenshoel and I were in the countryside of Sweden for Midsummer celebrations when I got a call from one of Andrew’s staff members to try to convince me to put my name on a statement. Then I got a call from Andrew himself. Andrew told me that he was trying to cut a deal to give tenants lower rent increases for Major Capital Improvements, which I knew was utter nonsense, just public relations.
In 2019, I got a call from Andrew’s scheduler on the last Sunday before the Tuesday, June 11 deadline for the Senate and Assembly to print the negotiated bill in time to vote on it before the June 15 expiration of the rent and coop laws, asking if I would meet with him on Monday when I came to Albany. Monday morning on the train I emailed her to say that I would meet with him if I could bring three people from Housing Justice for All, one from Rochester, one from Harlem, and another from Brooklyn. I knew he would not agree to this.
Senate Deputy Majority Leader Mike Gianaris called me while I was on the train to inform us of what was contained in HSTPA – a huge surprise, with pro-tenant changes we did not expect, and a huge tenant victory even.
When I arrived at Senator Liz Krueger’s office, I got a call from a young intern in the governor’s office who asked me if I would talk to Governor Cuomo on the phone right then.
I replied that I would not talk to Andrew on the phone, and I would not meet with him alone. I knew that he wanted to try to get us to object to some of the HSTPA content, which would have required the legislative leaders to negotiate with him in order to vote on the bill on time, if they did not introduce it that Tuesday because of our objections. Typical Andrew manipulation. That was the end of that.
The next day, Tuesday, June 11, we had to give the Senate and Assembly Democrats a YES answer to the HSTPA. There was no possibility to change anything at that point. We agreed to support the HSTPA.
But the governor’s office reached out to HJ4A, asking for a group to meet with Andrew about HSTPA. There were a lot of new tenant leaders for whom this was an early lobbying experience, and to be told that the governor of the state wants to meet with you is a big deal. All morning in Liz Krueger’s conference room we debated this.
Finally, there was a delegation of Harlem tenant leaders organized by Delsenia Glover of Tenants & Neighbors, one of whom said: “Wait a minute. We know what is in the bill. This guy just wants to save face. Why should we meet with him?” That was that, and the decision was made not to meet with Andrew. Cea Weaver called Andrew to tell him that HJ4A would not meet with him.
Who is Andrew Cuomo and why does he pretend to care about New York City?
Andrew Cuomo is a suburban millionaire who really doesn’t care about New York City or its residents. He is running in a ranked-choice primary because a candidate can win in a crowded field with a small percentage of the vote (20-30%) after multiple candidates are eliminated in earlier vote counts. He could never win in a regular primary where a candidate with his negatives would finish low on the only ballot count (one) as opposed to the ranked choice method of eliminating each losing candidate one by one.
Andrew Cuomo is ahead in the early polls because he has universal name recognition, lots of money left over from his governorship campaigns, and for an exaggerated reputation for “getting things done.” P.S. His real estate buddies, in addition to direct contributions to his mayoral campaign, have started a PAC to raise money to support his candidacy through direct expenditures which have much higher limits.
But if his actual record is exposed in the coming months, on issue after issue, he can be defeated.1
NYC tenants should not rank Andrew Cuomo on the June 24 ranked choice ballot.
Same thing with incumbent Eric Adams, who has done everything he can in the last four years to help landlords and hurt tenants. No tenant voter should rank Andrew Cuomo or Eric Adams. Leave them both off your ballot!
Tenants PAC will announce our choices for ranking by about April 1. There are a few pro-tenant candidates running for NYC Mayor, some more overtly pro-tenant than others. Please stand by for these recommendations.
Michael McKee has been a tenant organizer and advocate in New York State for 55 years, since 1970. McKee, who has served as Tenants PAC treasurer for over 25 years, is currently on medical leave while he undergoes treatment for a recently discovered brain tumor, but he is still devoting as much time as possible to the Tenant movement. He will be publishing a series of weekly manifestos until the end of session in June. Michael cut his teeth in the early 1970s organizing for Met Council on Housing, the oldest tenant union in New York City, and in the early-mid 1970s was a force in founding the first statewide tenant organization, New York State Tenants & Neighbors Coalition. In the 1970s and 1980s he was co-director of the statewide Peoples Housing Network which trained hundreds of tenant leaders and organizers and helped Tenants & Neighbors develop. Between 1975 and 1993 he was an officer of T&N including its statewide president for several years, and from 1993 to 2006 he was a T&N staff member until his retirement that year. Since 1997 he has served as volunteer treasurer of Tenants Political Action Committee, which was formed with the specific goal of helping the Democrats take control of the state senate. In 2018 the Rent Stabilization Association sued him for $40 million for alleged defamation. State Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit in March 2023, and despite RSA’s attempt to appeal, this dismissal was upheld unanimously by the Appellate Court in 2025. For the last six years he has been an active member and adviser to Housing Justice for All, the statewide coalition.
Andrew Cuomo’s Record
Exacerbating Housing Affordability and Homelessness Crises: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/04/andrew-cuomo-fix-new-york-00209892
Concealing Nursing Home Deaths During Covid-19: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/09/nyregion/cuomo-pandemic-nursing-home-deaths.html
Sexual Harassment: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/26/cuomo-sexual-harassment-doj-00138140
Millions of Dollars of Tax-Payer Funded Legal Fees:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-legal-fees-ny-taxpayers.html
Raiding Public Transit Funding: https://www.cityandstateny.com/policy/2017/10/tracking-gov-andrew-cuomos-funding-and-raiding-of-the-mta/181052/
Tax Breaks for Businesses and Millionaires: https://manhattan.institute/article/andrew-cuomo-is-gone-his-economic-mismanagement-not-forgotten
Forming a Non-Functional Pro-Israel PAC: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/07/nyregion/andrew-cuomo-israel.html
Corruption: