Six hours in and counting, City Council isn’t easing up on Mastro

Can Randy Mastro, Mayor Eric Adams’ nominee for corporation counsel, win over the City Council? A tense nomination hearing on Tuesday suggests that the answer may be no. Council members questioning Mastro still seem wary of the former Giuliani attorney, and honorifics and promises of accessibility are unlikely to change their minds.

Referring to Council Speaker Adrienne Adams as “your honor” and promising that council members wouldn’t need to “fill out any forms” to meet with him – a reference to the Mayor Adams’ own policy – Mastro pulled out some creative stops to convince council members that he would be a lawyer for the city government as a whole, not just for the mayor who nominated him. “I am there to serve you,” Mastro told council members at Tuesday’s 6-hour-plus hearing of the council’s Committee on Rules that, at the time this story was published, was still ongoing. 

Apart from those assurances, Mastro largely stuck to the arguments about the strength of his experience and commitment to public service that he’s already shared in the press. At times, he appeared flustered by council members’ questioning, while other exchanges resulted in long back-and-forths on details about specific cases he’s worked on. In one exchange with Council Member Leader Amanda Farías, Mastro seemed surprised to be asked about the fact that he would replacing a woman of color – Sylvia Hinds-Radix, who is reportedly departing over disagreements with the administration. “I don’t know that to be the case or that to be a fair characterization,” Mastro said, when asked by Farías, who is the council’s majority leader, whether he was “comfortable in entering a space in an administration that is pushing out women of color.”

In a hearing widely expected to produce fireworks, the City Council delivered, with driving and at times aggressive questioning from not just progressives on the council but the body’s leaders. Council members dug into the more controversial aspects of Mastro’s background – the four years he spent in Rudy Giuliani’s mayoral administration in the 1990s and his more recent private-sector clients, which include Chevron, the office of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the Bridgegate investigation, opponents of an Upper West Side homeless shelter, and the current New Jersey governor’s lawsuit against congestion pricing. 

City Hall and Mastro expended considerable effort to persuade council members – Mastro has said that he’s met personally with “most” council members over the last few months – to confirm his nomination. But some council members – including members of the Black, Latino and Asian Caucus and the LGBTQIA+ Caucus – have come out already to say that they won’t support him.

Council Member Diana Ayala, who is the council’s deputy speaker, was one of several members to criticize the cases that Mastro has taken on in private practice, including representing opponents of a temporary homeless shelter at the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Based on your record, you’ve failed to make vulnerable New Yorkers a priority,” Ayala said.

During the hearing, it emerged that Mastro had done some pro bono work for Mayor Adams’ office and the city relating to the migrant crisis in 2023. Asked about his work for Adams, Mastro said that he was only authorized to say that it was related to helping asylum-seekers have their cases heard more quickly and their work permits granted faster, as well as seeing what other federal resources might be available to help the city. City Hall later said that Mastro’s firm, King and Spalding, had provided pro bono support to the city’s Asylum Application Help Center.

Even as Mastro tried to assure council members that he would fairly represent all city employees, not just the mayor, he declined to weigh in on specific cases involving the mayor that the corporation counsel may have to work on – including the sexual harassment and retaliation cases against mayoral aide Tim Pearson – saying he would need to review the facts of the situation.

Mastro has support from a number of former elected officials and civil leaders around the city who, in hour six of questioning by council members, held an impromptu press gaggle organized by the mayor’s office. Former Gov. David Paterson suggested that the council was focusing too much on Mastro’s history in the Giuliani administration. “I think that too many of the City Council members are confusing this with, ‘so-and-so was a jerk, and that was 30 years ago, and why would you work with a jerk?’ How do you answer a question like that?” Paterson said. “The point is that this is a person who served the city well.” 

Unfortunately for Mastro, Paterson and his other supporters don’t have a vote in his confirmation. The City Council will likely hold an official vote on Mastro’s nomination during its stated meeting in the second week of September.