In the spring of 1993, a Supreme Court seat opened, and a sitting governor spent weeks swinging between yes and no while a president waited, with his son standing close enough to carry every message. The episode now reads less as a single choice than as a family's long habit of hesitation, one that a commentator suspects might echo in the later political life of that son. Much of what the commentator draws from it remains interpretation, offered as a lens rather than a settled account. Whether the story says anything about the present is, for now, a question the reader is left to weigh.
Like Father, Like Son: Andrew Cuomo, Mario Cuomo and the Supreme Court Seat That Never Was
Cuomo would never be on the Court.
Mark
Why does a thirty-year-old Supreme Court story matter now?
Mimi
Because Andrew Cuomo was in the middle of it. He was the channel between his father and the White House, and the author reads that episode as a clue to his later conduct.
Mark
What actually happened in 1993?
Mimi
Mario Cuomo said yes, no and maybe several times. On April 7 he faxed a refusal after a two-and-a-half-hour talk with Andrew. In June, after Clinton was set to call, he backed out again at 5:45.
Luke
Let's separate what's documented. The reversals come from Stephanopoulos's memoir and Hertzberg's account. Those are firsthand.
Mark
And the part about Andrew's motives?
Luke
That's attribution. An unnamed adviser told Shnayerson some people believe Andrew wanted his father out of the way. Nobody on the record says what Andrew urged.
Mimi
The author even flips it, guessing Andrew urged him to stay. Two opposite theories, neither confirmed.
Luke
Which tells you the evidence can't carry either one. The oedipal reading is a writer's interpretation.
Mark
So what is solid?
Mimi
The pattern of indecision, Andrew's go-between role, and the current allegations. The link between them is argument.
Luke
And what happened inside that call is unknown.
Der Puls
- A president needed a yes or no by day's end, and the answer kept flipping.
- A governor reversed himself repeatedly while his son relayed every call and sought to shape the outcome.
- Clinton waited two months, then moved on to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, yet the old hesitation was never fully put to rest.
- The author treats the 1993 back-and-forth as a lens on Andrew Cuomo's later conduct, but those links are speculation, not documented fact.
In the spring of 1993, a Supreme Court seat opened, and a sitting governor spent weeks swinging between yes and no while a president waited, with his son standing close enough to carry every message. The episode now reads less as a single choice than as a family's long habit of hesitation, one that a commentator suspects might echo in the later political life of that son. Much of what the commentator draws from it remains interpretation, offered as a lens rather than a settled account. Whether the story says anything about the present is, for now, a question the reader is left to weigh.
On April 7, 1993, George Stephanopoulos called Andrew Cuomo with an urgent message: the White House needed to know by the end of the day whether Governor Mario Cuomo would accept the Supreme Court seat left open by Byron White. Andrew, then 36, had long served as his father's confidant, and in this moment he became the go-between.
The governor had already changed direction several times. He signaled acceptance, then declined out of duty to New York, then said he would only take the job if the president personally ordered him to. Late in the day, after two and a half hours of talk with his son, Mario offered to call Clinton and accept, but within the hour he faxed a letter refusing the seat.
The story did not stop there. Clinton took two months to choose Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Before the offer was made, Andrew called again to say his father would accept after all, if the president insisted strongly enough. But on the evening a call had been planned, the governor reversed himself yet again, and when asked directly, said he would refuse. Stephanopoulos later wrote that the game was over.
The author, who once profiled Mario Cuomo, connects this history to Andrew's political career, from HUD and his failed 2002 run to his attorney general and governor years. Much of that connection rests on interpretation: what Andrew urged in those hours, and whether the father's habits surface in the son's style or the present scandals. The author offers these readings as conjecture, not conclusions.
On April 7, 1993, George Stephanopoulos, President Clinton's communications director, called Andrew Cuomo and told him the White House could not go on like this. Clinton needed an answer by day's end on whether Governor Mario Cuomo of New York would accept a nomination to the Supreme Court seat vacated by the retiring Justice Byron White. Andrew, then 36, was his father's confidant and go-between in the exchange.
The back-and-forth that preceded that call had already been strange. Mario Cuomo had signaled that he would accept, then that he would have to decline because of his obligations to New York, then that he would take the job only if the president truly told him to. Versions of the dance had leaked to the press. Clinton saw Cuomo as a brilliant, eloquent, principled and politically savvy choice, and Cuomo's decision not to run in the 1992 Democratic primaries had only raised his stock.
Andrew spoke with his father for two and a half hours that day, as he later told Hendrik Hertzberg of The New Yorker. Near the deadline, Mario said, "If you want me to, I'll call Clinton and take it." An hour later, the governor faxed the president a letter saying his duty to New York outweighed his desire to sit on the Court.
It did not end there. Clinton had no second choice and took two months to settle on one, eventually landing on Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Before he could make her the offer, Andrew phoned Stephanopoulos to ask whether the seat was still open. If so, he said, his father would accept this time, but Clinton would need to use strong language and tell him he had to do it. On the night of June 13, Andrew called again to say Mario was still on board. A call from Clinton to the governor was set for 6 P.M. the next day. At 5:45, Stephanopoulos was summoned to the phone and found the governor on the line, having changed his mind again. Asked point-blank whether he would turn the president down if called, Cuomo said yes. Stephanopoulos wrote in his memoir that the game was over.
The author of this opinion piece, who profiled Mario Cuomo for the Village Voice in 1982, recalls the governor telling him then that he would love to serve on New York's highest court: no cocktail parties, no compromise, just listening, reading and telling the truth, like Oliver Wendell Holmes always in dissent. Hertzberg, for his part, argued that Cuomo would have made short work of Antonin Scalia, and that by the time Bush v. Gore arrived, seven years of relationships with colleagues and practical knowledge of election law would have magnified his persuasiveness.
The author then asks what Andrew urged during those two and a half hours. Michael Shnayerson's 2015 biography, The Contender, reports an adviser saying some people believe Andrew very much wanted his father elevated to the Court because it would put him out of the way, sparing a son hoping to run for governor or senator his father's disruptive presence in New York. The author speculates the opposite may have happened, that Andrew urged his father to stay in Albany and keep the dynasty he could hope to inherit. He offers this as conjecture, not documented fact.
The piece then turns to Andrew's career: a HUD deputy secretaryship, a lost 2002 governor's race, election as attorney general in 2006, and the governorship since 2011. The author calls his style "thug lite" and says it served him against Donald Trump, as when he said of the NRA in 2018, "you try to bully us in New York, we put our finger in your chest." He also borrowed his father's "family of New York" rhetoric in COVID briefings and his 2020 convention speech, and at one briefing displayed a photo of Mario, saying, "He's still here for me."
The author notes the scandals now engulfing Andrew Cuomo: nine women have accused him of sexual harassment, and others accuse him of fudging nursing-home COVID death numbers. He links these to the father's pattern only by interpretation, citing oedipal drive, a "winner effect" described by Michelle Cottle, and a shared reluctance to travel. Whether the 1993 episode explains anything about the present remains the author's reading, not an established finding.
Bemerkenswerte Zitate
If you want me to, I'll call Clinton and take it.— Mario Cuomo to Andrew Cuomo, April 7, 1993, as recounted by Hendrik Hertzberg
Some people believe Andrew very much wanted his father elevated to the Supreme Court because that would put him out of the way.— An Andrew Cuomo adviser, quoted in Michael Shnayerson's The Contender
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