“I’m a single woman. I don’t come from wealth. How do I survive this experience so I can get a job again? In politics, your loyalty and your network is your value and taking on a member… you’re taking on their entire network and everything that network has to lose and especially if your claims aren’t enough to bring them down… I started to change my own behavior just to survive.”
Why does Albany remains more interested in protecting its own than in policing itself? Why is Women’s Equality Party Founder Andrew Cuomo blowing smoke about solving the state’s chronic sex harassment and crime problem? Why won’t Democrats taking full control of the state improve things? And why the press kept “stalking” the same women lawmakers did their damndest to keep quiet and ignore?
After a brief, brutal run-down of a quarter century of sex crimes and cover-ups in smallbany, Daily News opinion writer and public affairs consultant Alexis Grenell joins FAQ’ers Christina Greer, Harry Siegel and Alex Brook Lynn to answer those questions and more.
Then Alex has two separate conversations with women who experienced government at its worst firsthand and are now members of Harassment Free Albany pushing for real reforms and public hearings:
First, former education policy analyst and counsel for the Independent Democratic Conference Erica Vladimer talks about being harassed by fourth-man-in-the-room Jeff Klein in 2015, and why she finally went public with her experience this year.
And then Leah Hebert, quoted above, talks about what she went through working for and then confronting gross Brooklyn Boss and groper Vito Lopez while serving as his chief of staff.
Finally, Victoria Bekiempis runs down a wild week in New York’s courts, and Alex ticks off everything new you need to know to sound smart about the city.
