Take A Breath, Barbara Underwood Is Here To Clean Up Schneiderman's Mess
ERIC WHO?
Three hours after the New Yorker outed him as a serial domestic abuser, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman resigned last night.
"No one is above the law, including New York's top legal officer," said Governor Andrew Cuomo. And indeed, the Manhattan District Attorney's office is already probing the assault allegations against Schneiderman.
Note to all the harassers and abusers: GET THE FUCK OUT! Your time is coming.
Schneiderman should have seen the #metoo writing on the wall and slunk off into private practice. Instead he sponsored a bill to specifically criminalize choking, because cognitive dissonance is real, y'all! Now he'll be lucky to keep his license to practice law at all.
Just elect women to everything until further notice.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) May 7, 2018
And while we're not a fan of distributing jobs based on gender, we are very pleased to hear that Solicitor General Barbara Underwood will be taking over for Schneiderman today.
She's been a federal prosecutor in New York, US Deputy Solicitor General under Bill Clinton, and a prosecutor in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. She taught law at Yale and NYU and chaired the New York City Bar's Council on Criminal Justice. She clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall and argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court. Believe me, this lady is the boss of you! She will do an amazing job, and would be a terrific candidate in November if she wants to run for the seat.
It's not clear if New York legislators will decide to appoint someone to the rest of Schneiderman's term to give one candidate the advantage of incumbency in November's election, or allow Underwood to stay on through January.
Yes, we know that Twitter has nominated Preet Bharara and Hillary Clinton for the position. We get it -- shipping is fun. But Hillary Clinton hasn't practiced law in 30 years. And Bharara isn't going to get appointed by Albany legislators, whom he's likely to investigate for corruption. Will Bharara throw his hat in the ring for the November race? MAAAAYBE!
But until then, you've got an extremely competent woman running the Attorney General's Office. And that's a pretty good outcome.
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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore with her wonderful husband and a houseful of teenagers. When she isn't being mad about a thing on the internet, she's hiding in plain sight in the carpool line. She's the one wearing yoga pants glaring at her phone.
