As the calls for his resignation grow louder, state legislators are in the final stages of formulating a bill that will scale back Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s pandemic powers moving forward.
Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie announced Tuesday that the Legislature will pass legislation repealing the temporary emergency powers that were granted to the governor last year at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think everyone understands where we were back in March and where we are now. We certainly see the need for a quick response but also want to move toward a system of increased oversight, and review. The public deserves to have checks and balances. Our proposal would create a system with increased input while at the same time ensuring New Yorkers continue to be protected,” Stewart-Cousins said.
That means Cuomo’s existing COVID-19 mandates would remain in place but he wouldn’t be able to extend or tweak them without responding to questions from lawmakers.
“A year into the pandemic, and as New Yorkers receive the vaccine, the temporary emergency powers have served their purpose – it is time for them to be repealed,” Speaker Heastie said. “These temporary emergency powers were granted as New York was devastated by a virus we knew nothing about. Now it is time for our government to return to regular order.”
The legislation will also allow the Legislature to repeal a declared State of Emergency by joint resolution, and will keep disease outbreaks in the definition of disaster situation that can be subject to a state of emergency.
Legislators could start voting on the bill as soon as Friday.
Republicans called the bill a “bogus backroom deal.”
“Senate Republicans advanced the first proposal to end Governor Cuomo’s emergency powers 279 days ago,” said Senate Republican Leader Rob Ortt. “Today, panicking Democrats were finally forced into a corner after the Governor’s coverup of 15,000 nursing home deaths, the decimation of thousands of New Yorkers, and multiple scandals and investigations being led by both the FBI and the State Attorney General surrounding the Governor’s office. Our Conference has listened to New Yorkers’ pleas to strip the Governor’s powers. We advanced an amendment to do so 19 times. Each and every one of those times, not a single Senate Democrat stood with us in this effort to restore checks and balances to Albany. Today, as they announced this bogus backroom deal, they turned their back on New Yorkers yet again, voting no on our amendment to remove the executive powers.”
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