When people say Eric Adams should be removed from office, what do they mean?

Pressure is again building around removing New York City Mayor Eric Adams from office following new allegations that his legal team agreed to cooperate with the Trump administration’s immigration policies in exchange for federal prosecutors dropping his corruption charges.

Dozens of elected officials called for the mayor to resign – and, albeit in fewer cases, for him to be removed from office – in wake of federal prosecutors with the Southern District of New York indicting Adams in September. Refusing to step down and proclaiming his innocence, Adams largely prevailed – at least for a time. Now, the outcry has only grown louder as opponents charge he cut a corrupt deal with President Donald Trump. Ordered by a top U.S. Justice Department official to drop the case against Adams, Manhattan U.S. attorney Danielle Sassoon resigned yesterday, accusing Adams’ legal team of engaging in a quid pro quo with Trump’s Justice Department. Other officials followed suit after the case was transferred to the public integrity unit in Washington, D.C, The New York Times recently reported. As a fuller picture of the behind-the-scenes arrangement comes into focus, Adams is facing intensifying calls to resign or be removed. Even some of his prior allies have joined the call. 

Assuming Adams continues to refuse to step down, there are two paths some top New York elected officials could take to remove him from office. Each would come with its own pitfalls and complexities. 

The governor steps in

Under the state’s Public Officers Law, Hochul has the authority to remove the mayor of any city in the state – including New York City. The New York City Charter also says the governor has the power to remove the mayor from office “upon charges” (charges brought up by the governor, not necessarily in a court) as long as the mayor gets “an opportunity to be heard in his defense.”

It’s a broad, sweeping power. There are no stipulations about the circumstances in which she could exercise this authority. But choosing to remove Adams would be a monumental decision for Hochul. There is very little precedent for a governor using the power to remove a New York City mayor. The only time it's been used historically was in 1932, when former Gov. Franklin Roosevelt initiated removal proceedings against then-New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker. Still though, Walker resigned before the removal process was completed, ultimately leaving the power untested. There are many political calculations for Hochul to weigh while considering this route. It’s no easy decision.

Complexities aside, Hochul didn’t rule out removing Adams in wake of the latest developments. Speaking on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC Thursday night, Hochul said Sassoon’s allegations about Adams and his legal team were "extremely serious and concerning.” While the governor said she didn’t want to have a “knee-jerk” reaction, she said she’s “consulting with other leaders in government at this time,” when asked about the prospect of removal. Hochul said she needed “some time to process this and figure out the right approach.” Her response was a far cry from the defensive response she gave reporters earlier this week after initial news broke about the Justice Department instructing Manhattan federal prosecutors to drop Adams’ charges. At that point, she’d said she “wasn’t going to go there,” added that it doesn’t “seem very democratic” for her to use her powers to overturn voters’ decision to elect Adams in the first place.

Ousting by inability committee: 

Another, more complicated option to remove Adams outlined in the city charter would be through “a committee on mayoral inability.” This would be a five-member committee made up of the city’s corporation counsel, the comptroller, the City Council speaker, a deputy mayor selected by the mayor, and whichever borough president who’s served for the longest consecutive period. That would include comptroller Brad Lander (who is running for mayor), City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr., and recently-confirmed city Corporation Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant (who was nominated by Adams). Four of the committee’s five members would need to vote to form a panel of inability, which would be the entire 51-member City Council. Depending on whether the inability committee decides that Adams should be removed permanently or temporarily, the City Council would then vote on the outcome. A two-thirds majority would be required to oust Adams. 

There’s a lot of uncertainty around this approach. Asked about the possibility in October, Speaker Adams said the idea of the committee was initially conceived to remove a mayor who was physically unable to perform the job – in that case, after former Mayor Ed Koch had a stroke in 1987. “I think that it’s important to note the historical perspective of an inability committee,” she said, according to amNewYork. “The word inability, I believe, was chosen because of that very fact, of the mayor being unable, physically unable, to fulfill his role. That is not what we have in this instance.” Of course, much has changed since October, though there’ve been no prior attempts to form an inability committee to oust a mayor. Then again, much of city politics in recent months has been unprecedented.