Randy Mastro backs out of uphill nomination fight

Dump them before they can dump you. Randy Mastro, Mayor Eric Adams’ nominee for corporation counsel, requested that Adams withdraw his nomination of him on Tuesday, according to a copy of the letter obtained by City & State. The move comes just two days before Mastro was set to face a confirmation vote in the City Council that was likely to fail.

“Speaker (Adrienne) Adams has now made clear, by the way she permitted the Council to conduct its hearing on my nomination, that she intends to deny you the nominee of your choice. I do not know what possessed the City Council to conduct this confirmation hearing as it did,” Mastro said in his letter to Mayor Adams.

Allies of Mastro and the mayor lambasted the 11-hour public hearing that the council held last month at which council members questioned Mastro, drawing attention to his prior service under former Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a number of controversial clients and work he’d taken on in his long career in private practice.

“Randy Mastro is widely recognized as one of our nation’s top lawyers who has fought for social justice, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and is one of the only lawyers in New York who has taken on Donald Trump multiple times in court and won,” Mayor Adams said in a statement. “It’s unfortunate that politics has seeped into this process and, as a result, will deprive New Yorkers of one of the most qualified candidates for this office our city has ever seen.”

In a statement, New York City Council spokesperson Julia Agos didn’t deny that the Mastro conflict became messy but put the blame for that on the nomination itself. “While we are glad to see the unnecessary conflict and divisiveness that Randy Mastro's nomination represented come to an end, his withdrawal letter demonstrates why so many lacked trust that he would be a suitable lawyer for all city officials, rather than just for the mayor,” Agos said. “From the outset, Council Members raised concerns about his record and the ability to trust that he would be a lawyer for the Council and entire City. Mr. Mastro offered no real accounting or accountability for the areas of his record during the Giuliani Administration and afterwards that many found harmful to Black, Latino, and marginalized communities, while also showing him to be politically loyal.”

Skepticism of and even outright opposition to Mastro’s nomination was building long before Mayor Adams officially nominated him to the post in July, as rumors of his anticipated nomination were first reported several months prior. In that time and in the months leading up to his August confirmation hearing, Mastro said that met with the majority of City Council members, but he didn’t appear to sway enough of those members in any private meetings and at his Aug. 27 hearing.

Among other issues council members highlighted at the marathon hearing were some of Mastro’s controversial tactics and clients he’s taken on in private practice, including 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.

Corporation counsel is one of just a handful of positions appointed by the mayor that the City Council has the right to confirm. Council Speaker Adams has sought to expand that power, also known as Advice and Consent, to additional commissioner-level positions. The council has passed legislation that would do so, but it needs to pass in a voter referendum. That referendum won’t be able to take place on the ballot this November, as ballot proposals put forward by the mayor’s Charter Revision Commission take precedence.

Several op-eds in recent days have also criticized the council’s hearing, with at least one Mayor Adams and Mastro ally drawing the connection between the council’s hearing on Mastro and their attempt to expand Advice and Consent powers. “The Council says it wants more ‘advice and consent’ authority over cabinet-level posts. But if this is the way it is going to conduct itself, we should all say ‘no way,’” Rudy Washington, a former deputy mayor under Giuliani who praised Mastro in City Hall’s first press release, wrote in amNY.