This has been brewing for a while. Cuomo has pretty much aligned himself with the statehouse Republicans by design, doing little to help the Democratic party. Now he's screwing Mayor deBlasio, and the mayor has decided to speak out:
Mayor Bill de Blasio, in candid and searing words rarely employed by elected officials of his stature, accused Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Tuesday of stymieing New York City’s legislative goals out of personal pettiness, “game-playing” and a desire for “revenge.”
In an extraordinary interview, Mr. de Blasio, appearing to unburden himself of months’ worth of frustrations, said that Mr. Cuomo — who, like the mayor, is a Democrat — “did not act in the interests” of New Yorkers by blocking measures like reforming rent laws and the mayor’s long-term ability to control the city’s public schools.
“I started a year and a half ago with a hope of a very strong partnership,” Mr. de Blasio said of the governor, whom he has known for two decades. “I have been disappointed at every turn.”
Mr. Cuomo, the mayor said, had acted vindictively toward the city, citing cuts in state financing for public housing and what he called an abrupt ramp-up of state inspections of city homeless shelters “with a vigor we had never seen before.”
“That was clearly politically motivated,” Mr. de Blasio said, “and that was revenge for some perceived slight.”
The mayor added: “It’s not about policy. It’s not about substance. It’s certainly not about the millions of people affected.”
His criticism — barbed by any measure, but especially so for a sitting mayor — amounted to an audacious gambit by Mr. de Blasio: The mayor is betting that he can outflank a governor who wields enormous power over his administration’s affairs, even as he needs him as a negotiating partner.
There is a long history of bitterness between mayors and governors of New York, even those from the same party. But Mr. de Blasio, speaking calmly and deliberatively, indicated that his relationship with the governor had deteriorated to a historic low.
The mayor summoned journalists to his City Hall office for a pair of interviews on Tuesday afternoon, only hours before he was to leave New York for a weeklong family vacation to the Southwest. He said he had finally run out of patience with Mr. Cuomo, who has been widely viewed as being an obstacle to the mayor’s agenda since Mr. de Blasio took office in 2014.
“We will not play these games,” Mr. de Blasio said, adding that Mr. Cuomo’s behavior was “not anything like acceptable government practice, and I think people all over the state are coming to the same conclusion.”
The governor’s office responded with a two-sentence statement that carried its own subtle sting.
“For those new to the process, it takes coalition-building and compromise to get things done in government,” the governor’s spokeswoman, Melissa DeRosa, wrote in an email.
She added: “We wish the mayor well on his vacation.”
