REIGN HIM IN

Dem Lawmakers Threaten to Revoke Cuomo’s Pandemic Powers After Nursing Home Fiasco

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is under fire after reports his administration hid data about coronavirus nursing home deaths.

New York state legislators are considering revoking the pandemic-era emergency powers given to Gov. Andrew Cuomo last year. Fourteen Democratic lawmakers in the State Senate signed on to a statement calling for Cuomo’s powers to be curbed after the New York Post and New York Times reported that top aide Melissa DeRosa withheld nursing home death counts from federal investigators. “While COVID-19 has tested the limits of our people and state — and, early during the pandemic, required the government to restructure decision making to render rapid, necessary public health judgments — it is clear that the expanded emergency powers granted to the Governor are no longer appropriate,” the senators said in a statement.

In a meeting on Friday, the majority of Democrats in the State Assembly also agreed that Cuomo’s emergency powers should be revoked in the wake of the nursing home scandal, NY1 reported.