2014: The year in review

While Gov. Andrew Cuomo spent the year making his case for – and winning – a second term, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio took office and jumped right into working on his big campaign promises with mixed success, setting the stage for many of the issues that would plague him as his mayoralty went on. 

De Blasio, the first Democratic mayor of New York City in 20 years, took the oath of office on Jan. 1 at City Hall, ushering in a new, progressive administration. From the beginning, City Hall would have an ally in Melissa Mark-Viverito, the city’s first Latina City Council speaker, who was elected by her colleagues with a behind-the-scenes lobbying assist from the de Blasio administration.

De Blasio was elected on a number of promises, among them introducing universal prekindergarten, funded by a tax on the wealthiest New Yorkers, and ending the NYPD’s rampant use of stop-and-frisk policing tactics. Come the first day of school in September, some 51,000 four-year-olds were attending pre-K free of charge, a huge and quick win for the administration. It was funded, however, by an allocation from Albany, and not a new tax on the wealthy, which Cuomo refused to go along with – an early battle in what would become a long and drawn-out war.

It was also a fraught year for the NYPD. De Blasio and his new police commissioner, Bill Bratton, reduced stop-and-frisks by about 75 percent from 2013 to 2014. But on July 17, Eric Garner died on Staten Island after being put in a chokehold by NYPD officers during an arrest. Garner’s death and his last words – “I can’t breathe” – became a rallying cry of the Black Lives Matter movement and activists calling for police reform. Marches across New York and the country picked up in December after a grand jury declined to indict one of the officers involved, Daniel Pantaleo. Then on Dec. 20, a Baltimore mantraveled to Brooklyn and murdered NYPD officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu, an act that was purportedly revenge for the police-involved killings of Garner and Michael Brown. At Ramos’ funeral, hundreds of NYPD officers turned their backs on de Blasio, who had made statements they interpreted as anti-police.

Cuomo was widely expected to win re-election, and did in November, with former U.S. Rep. Kathy Hochul by his side as lieutenant governor. To get there, he had to overcome a surprisingly strong challenge in the Democratic primary from Zephyr Teachout, a law professor and anti-corruption scholar running on a progressive platform. In the general election, Cuomo defeated Rob Astorino, the Republican Westchester county executive. 

Both Teachout and Astorino found ammunition to use against the governor in the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, which Cuomo abruptly disbanded in March 2014. Following on the heels of several scoops in the Daily News, City & State exposed more details about the Cuomo administration’s involvement with the supposedly independent commission and wrote about the promising leads it uncovered before its early end. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara criticized the Cuomo administration’s involvement, and further reporting by The New York Times turned it into a major political liability for the governor.

In Albany, the Legislature also legalized medical marijuana, although only in the form of liquids, oils and capsules. Former Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was acquitted on a retrial and cleared of all charges of mail fraud connected to bribery accusations. And in December, after his re-election, Cuomo announced a ban on hydrofracking in New York after months of speculation over the contentious topic.

OUR COVERAGE: After Cuomo shuttered the Moreland Commission to Investigate Public Corruption, City & State was one of the first to report on what the commission had been working on. An April story by Morgan Pehme and two colleagues chronicled, in detail, the meddling in the commission’s work by the Cuomo administration. And a May 11 story documented questionable campaign spending by a number of state lawmakers, including state Sens. George Maziarz and Greg Ball. Both legislators declined to run again that fall.

Soon after Cuomo’s re-election, a City & State cover story profiled the relationship between Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, shedding light on Cuomo’s decision to downplay Christie’s Bridgegate scandal.