Excited about James’ harsh conversation about Trump, many New Yorkers expected her to eagerly fill the larger-than-life profile.
It did not quite play out as they expected.
Fans who expected her to burst out at the gate in an expanded version of Tish the Public Advocate said they were initially frustrated. Some activists for marginalized communities feel that her office is not responding to their issues as they had hoped. James had already announced that she would not dress Spitzer’s monk as the ‘sheriff of Wall Street’, but some liberals expected more in the way of financial oversight.
“I think as a councilor and as a public defender, she was one of the most aggressive, outspoken people on many of the progressive priorities in the city,” Jonathan Westin, director of New York Communities for Change, said in August.. “And I think we saw her role as AG go back a bit from who she was as a board member and public defender.”
‘I know there are good staff and good people; “I just do not see much movement in the exercise of financial influence in New York,” he said at the time.
Former members of the AG’s office say they are concerned that James’ focus on challenging the Trump administration is at the expense of more prosaic, but no less important, matters closer to home. Amy Spitalnick, who was a communications director for Schneiderman, said it was not a question of whether the office’s many veterans’ advocates covered the office’s bread and butter rights (certainly less sexy work such as car insurance fraud and state defense in regular lawsuits). and continued in the role and as senior policy adviser when Underwood took over.
“There’s so much the office does – and I suspect it’s all happening,” Spitalnick said in August. “It’s just a question of whether you prioritize, publish and own it like with the Trump stuff.”
James has vowed to tackle corruption at the highest levels of state government. But the support she enjoyed from the governor was in contrast to the fireworks that characterized the Cuomo-Schneiderman relationship, which included repeated attempts at one-man business, accusations of stealing spotlight and even stabbing over physical appearance.
“We would make stories, news and press outside of him, which he hated,” a former Schneiderman collaborator told Cuomo last summer. “He was constantly worried about what we were doing. He never has to worry about it [James] office do, and more importantly, it’s a bit more of a command and control, at least it’s the perception people have. ”
The perspective traveled quietly among Democratic circles during the first two years of her tenure, but in her January interview with POLITICO, James gave a tantalizing idea that things were about to change. What Albany’s chorus of former officials saw as an unwavering Cuomo alliance, she explained, had expanded primarily to oppose the Trump administration.
“Governor Cuomo and I have had a common enemy in the federal government and its handling of New Yorkers,” she said. ‘And I want to remind individuals that I’m an independent official, and I take my job seriously. And the tension between Governor Cuomo and I, if there is tension, we keep it between the two of us. ”
Within a few days of the interview, the book about James would begin with a new chapter, with the release of the nursing home report. And some of the same people who were skeptical about her now say they admire her independence.
“The word political sleeper comes to mind,” said a Democratic agent in the Cuomo government who has been following James’ job for the past few years. “She will do exactly what she has to do, nothing more, nothing less. Some say she does not play chess, but I think it is not fair. She is smart, considerate, tough and loyal – all the qualities are a good lawyer-general. ‘