Maybe he forgot his title is “Speaker.”
Carl Heastie, who as the Democratic leader of the state Assembly is one of the three most powerful elected officials in the state, extended his boycott of questions from The Post for a second week on Tuesday — and angrily declared that he won’t “be disrespected” by New York’s hardest-hitting tabloid.
During a Q-and-A session with reporters in Albany, the Bronx Democrat pointedly ignored The Post’s Albany reporter, Zach Williams, who asked why Assembly Democrats were changing committee rules to make it harder for individual lawmakers to force votes on controversial legislation.
“Next question,” Heastie said curtly.
The move marked the second time in as many weeks that the Assembly speaker refused to respond to inquiries from Williams, who last Wednesday tried to ask the speaker about bail reform and charter schools.
“I’m not answering any of the questions from The Post,” Heastie said at the time.
On Tuesday, a reporter from a competing news outlet asked Heastie, “Can you tell us why you don’t want to take questions from the New York Post? And what is leading to this? How long it’s gonna last?”
“I have no problem talking to y’all. This is my third gaggle. I don’t have a problem speaking to y’all but at some point, I’m not going to be disrespected just because I’m an elected official,” the Bronx pol responded. “I’m not going to be disrespected. So I don’t know how long that’s gonna last.”
When asked if his stonewalling was prompted by “a particular story,” Heastie said. “I could run down a list but that’s not why I’m here.”
On Friday, The Post’s Editorial Board took Heastie to task for ignoring Williams’ questions last week and accused him of retaliating over a Jan. 27 editorial headline that blamed him for increasingly deadly violence among city teens due to the state’s controversial “Raise the Age” law.
“Boo hoo. We haven’t seen a top pol get this petty since Bill de Blasio pulled a similar stunt. You’re in great company, Carl,” Friday’s editorial said.
The headline also blasted his “pathetic pique at being called out for soaring teen homicides.”
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D–Bronx) who has boycotted questions from the New York Post for the past two weeks – did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday about the rule change.
Heastie has been an outspoken supporter of New York’s controversial, 2019 bail reform law and has resisted efforts by Mayor Eric Adams to strengthen it by giving judges the power to detain defendants based on the danger they pose to the public.
“Can we stop blaming bail reform when the sun comes out?” he said last year. “Can we stop just trying to make, you know, political fodder because we think it’ll, it’ll make for good campaigns? Because I really think that’s doing a disservice to the people.”
In April, scores of fed-up city cops and crime victims — including the widow of slain NYPD cop Jason Rivera — rallied in vain outside his Bronx district office to demand changes to the law.
Heastie has also opposed Adams’ efforts to roll back the “Raise the Age” law that increased the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18.
“As the important discussion of public safety continues, one area he can take immediate action is to review and improve pretrial services in the probation department which he oversees,” Heastie said of Adams last year. “This is critical to ensuring the goals of the Raise the Age initiative are realized.”