ALBANY – State Comptroller Alan Hevesi could become the first statewide official forcibly removed from office since the 1913 impeachment of Gov. William Sulzer.
But while Hevesi could be booted for misconduct, Sulzer was tossed in large part for bucking his party.
During his Assembly career in the late 1800s, Sulzer successfully sponsored legislation outlawing sweatshops, providing for weekly payment of wages and establishing a half holiday on Saturdays.
After leaving the Assembly, he spent 18 years in Congress, where he authored the bill that established the U.S. Department of Labor.
But Sulzer, a Democrat, was considered a maverick by the corrupt Tammany Hall Democratic political machine, which had blocked his attempts to run for governor.
As his popularity grew, Tammany Hall relented, and Sulzer was elected New York’s 39th governor in 1912.
But Sulzer abolished Democratic no-show patronage jobs, refused to fill posts with Tammany cronies, and initiated a campaign to replace party conventions with direct primaries.
Six months after his election, a probe began into whether Sulzer misused campaign funds.
The Assembly impeached him, and the Senate found him guilty of three minor charges and removed him on Oct. 18, 1913. Sulzer’s supporters called it a political lynching.