Sounding more and more like a candidate for governor, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams on Thursday evening maintained he hasn’t decided if he will run, but heaped criticism on the state government and called for true progressive change.
“We have to really think about whether just removing one person is gonna change it. We have to really change how politics is done there,” Williams said about Albany in an interview with NY1 political anchor Errol Louis on “Inside City Hall.”
“There should be someone there, I believe, who has a history pushing past inertia, taking the political risks to do what’s right,” he added.
Williams, who has formed an exploratory committee for a possible primary challenge to Gov. Kathy Hochul, appeared to criticize the current governor in the interview. At one point, he indicated he believed the problems in Albany would not have been as severe if he had been elected lieutenant governor years ago. During his campaign for the office in 2018, Williams had argued he would be a check on former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who would later be forced to resign due to allegations of sexual harassment.
"I said then, if we had a lieutenant governor who would speak up when things were wrong, and there were a lot of things wrong for quite some time, maybe we wouldn’t have been as bad as we are at the moment trying to clean up,” Williams said.
Although New York has at times been praised nationally for passing liberal priorities such as marriage equality, paid sick leave, and higher taxes on the wealthy, Williams, who is viewed as a progressive leader in New York City, argued that the state is still behind.
“If you ask people in the state of New York how they’re doing right now, they won’t say that they’re doing very well,” Williams said. He argued that “we’re nowhere near where we should be for calling ourselves a progressive state, and we’re very often following behind other states instead of leading” when it comes to housing, climate, public safety, education and health care.
Some political experts theorize that if Williams does run, he could face competition in the progressive lane from state Attorney General Letitia James, who has also been floated as a possible Democratic candidate for governor next year, and they could undercut each other’s campaigns since they could draw from the same voter base in Brooklyn. Williams didn’t directly answer when asked about that possibility and if he spoke to James about it.
“I don’t make decisions based on who’s in, or who’s not, in a race,” Williams said.
Williams did say James, who was his predecessor as public advocate, is “doing a great job as attorney general.”
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Watch the full interview above.
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