I said last week that after the events of last Monday it was important for Gov Hochul to remove Mayor Eric Adams from office. The voters of New York City are entitled to a mayor who is not being held hostage by a President most New Yorkers don’t support. The argument is straightforward; I make it here. But this is part of broader necessity. As long as the sitting President persists governing in defiance of the federal constitution, the power and autonomy of state governments become critical bases of legitimate political power. Blue states need to be expanding ways to work together to protect the liberties of their residents against unlawful uses of power, harassment and abuse. This is a difficult challenge since the supremacy of federal law is a cornerstone of the constitutional system. But state governments are not subordinate to the federal government in the way that regional and local governments are in unitary states. There are many areas where the federal government has no say in state action. And at the most basic level, state officials do not answer to federal officials. The tether binding one to another is at best through the courts. With Democrats for the moment excluded from power in Washington, Democratic power at the state level becomes a critical hold on power and executive authority. It’s in that context that removing Adams from power becomes even more critical. The executive branch of the federal government is now run by a lawless executive enabling criminal conduct across the executive branch. He can’t be allowed to extend that power within New York state – or in any other state for that matter. New York City, after all, has a larger population than all but about a dozen states.
