Dems dodge on Spitzer resignation

Precious few New York lawmakers in Congress called on Gov. Eliot Spitzer to resign Tuesday following reports that he hired a highly paid call girl to meet him in a Washington hotel.

Members of the overwhelmingly Democratic delegation mostly dodged questions about the governor’s future, showing reluctance to condemn a political ally before he had decided to step down.

{mosads}“It’s going to be reviewed and we’ll see how it goes,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D), who called the matter “so sad and really shocking.”

Asked to verify that she had no opinion on Spitzer’s political future, she hesitated before sputtering, “Well, I want to see what the legal reviews look like.”

Rep. Joseph Crowley (D) was more artful. He burst into a broad grin when asked to chat about Spitzer, cracking, “Yeah, what about him?”

Then, shimmying toward a nearly empty room where the Democratic Caucus was due to convene in a few minutes, he said, “I have to go into my meeting right now.”

Other members were dumbfounded and saddened by the allegations, which threaten to ruin the career of someone many of them regarded as a great hope for their state and their party. Reports that Spitzer’s resignation was imminent circulated throughout the day, but as The Hill went to press it remained unclear whether he actually would resign.

Even the usually loquacious Sen. Charles Schumer (D) had little to say on Spitzer. He told reporters, “I’m waiting until he makes a statement. I put out a statement myself and you can get it from my office.”

A call to his office yielded a statement Schumer had made Monday that said “until he makes a more complete statement, I have nothing more to say.”

Not all the lawmakers were so cagey.

“If these serious allegations are true, the governor will have no choice but to resign,” Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D) did not equivocate on whether Spitzer should step down. “Yes,” went her blunt reply.

She was also alone in decrying Spitzer’s actions, saying he had “brought shame across New York.”   

McCarthy expressed sadness for Spitzer’s wife and three daughters. “Three teenagers, girls, they are going to go through a lot of pain for a long time,” she said.

Rep. Tim Bishop (D) hinted strongly that Spitzer should step down, while stopping short of calling for his resignation. “I think the people of New York deserve to be governed by someone whose entire focus is on New York, and we’ll let the people make that decision.”

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D), the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee, spoke about Spitzer in the past tense, expressing sadness at the loss of someone she deemed an advocate for upstate New York voters. “I liked him very much. I thought he was brilliant,” she said.

Rep. José Serrano (D) chalked up his colleagues’ reticence to shock. “People may seem evasive. It’s the fact that we know this man,” he said. “It’s his decision. I just hope the best for him.”

For New York Democrats, the threat of Spitzer’s downfall deals a sharp blow. Many of them knew Spitzer well and had invested in him as a colleague. Slaughter said she had just begun to work with him on reviving upstate New York. “He cared about it,” she said.

Rep. Edolphus Towns (D), a longtime member of the delegation, said he had talked to his son, a legislator in Albany, on Monday night. “He’s disappointed because he thought Spitzer would be the one to turn New York state around,” Towns said.

Manu Raju contributed to this article.