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Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing a growing chorus of criticism over his administration’s failure to disclose data on nursing home deaths related to COVID-19, and a group of Democratic Assembly members has signed a letter accusing the governor of obstruction of justice, as well as introducing legislation that would strip Cuomo of the pandemic-related emergency executive powers he’s held since March 2020.
“This is a necessary first step in beginning to right the criminal wrongs of this governor and his administration,” reads the letter.
The bill is co-sponsored by Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim, who the governor reportedly threatened to “destroy” in his response to criticism over the state’s handling of nursing homes. (Kim’s uncle died from COVID-19 in a Queens nursing home.) On Wednesday, a spokesman for Cuomo accused Kim of lying about his conversation with the governor.
On a Thursday morning TV appearance, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said of the incident, “A lot of people in New York state have received those phone calls. The bullying is nothing new.” (The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
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With federal prosecutors now investigating the Cuomo administration’s handling of COVID-19 in nursing homes, the governor could be facing a more immediate challenge of what governing in the pandemic looks like without the authority to issue executive orders affecting everything from indoor dining to schools to the MTA. (The governor’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment for this article.)
“He was given extraordinary power,” said Brooklyn assembly member Robert Carroll, one of nine Democratic Assembly members who signed this week’s letter. “He’s been able to go in and change state law, change budget lines without review from the Assembly or Senate. We should have taken it away months ago.”
As part of a $40 million package of relief legislation passed last March, Cuomo was granted a far-reaching, vague expansion of his emergency powers which included largely unclear parameters, and broadened the definition of what constitutes. At the time, the New York Civil Liberties Union issued a statement comparing the legislation to expanded antiterrorism laws enacted after 9/11, saying, “We should not repeat the mistakes of 20 years ago.
The governor’s near-unilateral authority has come under fire in the past year over issues including indoor dining, which was allowed to open at reduced capacity in other parts of New York state but until recently remained closed in New York City under a separate executive order from Cuomo, a source of significant frustration in the city’s restaurant industry.
Cuomo has also faced sharp criticism over vaccine rollout policies that included onerous fines for hospitals, as well as his executive order suspending overnight MTA service indefinitely.
Some lawmakers have been advocating to repeal the governor’s emergency powers for months, and the scandal surrounding nursing homes—which were forced to take in COVID-19 patients under an executive order from Cuomo—may be the catalyst to move the process forward. (After using an executive order to push nursing homes to accept COVID-19 patients, Cuomo’s administration withheld data on nursing home deaths from the federal government, an aide to the governor admitted in a private call to lawmakers last week.)
“What we’re trying to do is say, ‘We need to have a reset, we need to have the legislature be a co-equal branch of government, and to have transparency,’” Carroll said. “We need basic oversight and to go back to the normal course of business.”
Cuomo’s executive powers are already set to expire on April 30, but if the current bill to repeal them passes both the Senate and the Assembly beforehand, one possible scenario is the creation of a commission that would evaluate pandemic-related orders moving forward.
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If the governor’s pandemic-related emergency powers are indeed repealed, New York could face a pandemic response that looks very different than the past year, one with fewer executive orders, and potentially fewer dramatic day-to-day policy changes.
“I think everybody wants an effective, efficient vaccine rollout so that we can open our schools, our transit, office buildings, bars and restaurants, Broadway, to get back to living normal life,” Carroll said. “The only way we’ll actually be able to do that effectively [is with oversight]. For instance, with the reduced subway service, when [the governor’s office] started getting scrutiny from the legislature, magically, 22-hour service was restored.”
Carroll added, “Scrutiny is a good thing.”
