The one-party dominance in New York has failed yet again, according to former New York GOP Gov. George Pataki on Newsmax, the last governor of New York to have left office free of scandal.
"It's the arrogance of power, Tom," Pataki told host Tom Basile on Saturday's "America Right Now." "And when you have someone hopeful in an elected position, whether it's governor, or whether it's president, that arrogance just overcomes the ability to function in an effective way. And it's one of the reasons I believe in limited government.
"Absolute power corrupts absolutely. We saw that in New York."
Pataki, the last Republican governor in New York, served three terms, 1995-2006, and is the only living elected state governor who has not been forced to resign in scandal.
"It's been a broken state Capitol, and we need not just to change in governor, we need to change in direction of the state," Pataki said.
Pataki warned that Cuomo's resignation was not to serve the people of the state, but actually himself, keeping him from losing his pension. Also, as Pataki told the New York Post on Saturday, his resignation keeps his political aspirations alive for the future.
"He had two choices, resign or get impeached," Pataki told Basile. "There's no question the legislature was preparing to impeach him, and I think the force of that forced them to resign, even though he really didn't want to."
Pataki rebuked Cuomo's resignation news conference for being disingenuous "self-serving nonsense."
"This was self-serving nonsense, Tom, and I look at that, and it makes me cringe," Pataki continued. "He hasn't done the right thing for the people of New York in some time, and this is not the only scandal.
"The one the attorney general just found leveled credible claimants against him for sexual harassment. He's had a toxic work environment forever, since he's taken office. A lot of us have known that. And he wasn't doing the people any favors stepping down – as hard as he tried to make it sound that way.
"He was doing himself a favor because otherwise he would have been impeached, he would have lost his pension, he could have never run for office again, and it was to avoid that – not to help the people of New York that Cuomo finally was forced to step down."
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul is going to assume the governor's mansion in about one week, but she will ultimately be beholden to the same radical leftist forces in the deep blue state, including in her own future run for governor, Pataki concluded.
"So the question is very simple: Will she govern as a moderate?" Pataki asked. "Will she change the policies that have made this state have the highest tax burden in the country, a rate of violent crime that's going through the roof, job losses that are unsustainable?
"Will she change those policies to do what's right for the state or will she do what Cuomo did, which is go radically left."
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