Tenant Advocates Blame Cuomo For Tying Education Tax Credit To Rent Regulation

Crains reports that tenant advocates are holding Governor Cuomo accountable for the expiration of rent regulation laws in NYC and plan to primary him in three years:

"Cuomo has alienated a massive number of rent-regulated Democratic voters by not delivering stronger rent laws this session," said one operative working with tenant groups. "His base blames him, not anyone else, for the dysfunction and corruption in Albany."

By linking rent regulation with a $150 million education tax credit proposal opposed by Assembly Democrats, Mr. Cuomo has poisoned the debate, said Jonathan Westin, director of New York City Communities for Change.

"Tenants across New York City, especially in communities of color, folks that supported the governor in his re-election, are furious at what's happening," Mr. Westin said. "Albany, and the governor specifically, are playing games with their homes."

"The only thing holding up his poll numbers are New York City liberals and communities of color," he continued. "And if he loses those, I don't know what will be left. He's completely vulnerable."

I've said before, I'll say again, it's a shame these activists didn't realize Cuomo would betray them before this, so that more damage could have been done to him in the 2014 primary.

Nonetheless Westin is right that the only thing holding Cuomo up from complete political collapse in polls is the liberal base and communities of color in NYC.

If he loses that support (and God knows, he should), he will fall below Spitzer territory in approval.

Hell, he's almost in Spitzer territory now - won't take much to put him there.

A commenter at Crains points out the real danger here for Cuomo politically:

The point is not so much that "tenant activists" would pull this off but that at the rate our esteemed governor is going that by 2018 there could be a rather formidable coalition of tenant activists, anti-frackers, parents and teachers fed up with Cuomo's education policies, people finally exhausted by the Roman level of decadence now playing out in Albany and an assortment of other moderate and liberal Democrats that a real candidate willing to show some courage, like Eric Schneiderman or Tom DiNapoli, or, yes, even Zephyr Teachout would have a real chance in a primary with a lot of energized anti-Andy voters in it.

All of this assumes he's not carted out in handcuffs as the third arrest in the "Three Amigos In A Jail" show US Attorney Preet Bharara is putting on for the state.

This also assumes that the anger activists are expressing remains undiminished by whatever deal eventually gets worked out on rent regulation.

Still, the blueprint is there to continue to weaken and finally destroy Andrew Cuomo politically - and Cuomo keeps adding to it with every betrayal and fight he wages these days.