Now that Eliot Spitzer won’t have Alan Hevesi in Albany anymore, it’s interesting to see that he’s hired Carl Andrews as a community liaison.
Spitzer delivered an early and well-documented repudiation of Hevesi earlier this year to signal clearly his intolerance for the way public officials have conducted themselves in the past.
With Andrews, Spitzer is embracing someone who hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing himself, but who is certainly the product of a party machine that was hardly a model of post-Day 1 propriety.
Spitzer’s association with Andrews goes back to the days when Andrews worked closely with Brooklyn Democratic County leader Clarence Norman, who was later convicted on corruption charges. After the Brooklyn organization endorsed Spitzer during the four-way Democratic attorney general primary in 1998, Andrews went to work on Spitzer’s campaign as a statewide field coordinator. Spitzer won the primary, defeating incumbent Republican Dennis Vacco, and Andrews went to work in the AG’s office.
This year, Spitzer made a rare primary endorsement when Andrews ran for a seat in the 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn.
“It’s Mr. Spitzer’s prerogative to make personnel announcements,” said Darren Dopp, Spitzer’s spokesman in the AG’s office. Andrews “is expected to fill a role with the administration.”
“All members of this administration go through a comprehensive background check,” he said, adding, “It’s unfair to be damned by association.”
— Azi Paybarah
