He is now mostly remembered as chairman of the "Lusk Committee", and was the acting lieutenant governor of New York in 1922.

Jeremiah Wood, who was appointed a judge of the New York Court of Claims, Lusk became Acting Lieutenant Governor until the end of the year serving under Governor Nathan Lewis Miller.

At the end of his third term, he came under scrutiny for allegedly having accepted gifts from various companies to support or oppose legislation.

A stadium at the State University of New York at Cortland is named in his honor.

He was a member of the Young Men's Debating Club (today the Delphic Fraternity) at the Cortland Normal School.