By Post Editorial Board | New York Post
As the wheels are coming off of the Cuomo
administration’s COVID coverup machine, fed-up Democratic lawmakers are joining
their GOP colleagues in looking to hold Gov. Cuomo accountable.
On Friday, 14 Democratic state senators demanded
the revocation
of Cuomo’s emergency powers, while their GOP colleagues called for a
special session to immediately strip him of those broad emergency powers. Both
sides of the aisle look to be of one accord: Enough is enough.
“While the executive’s authority to issue directives is
due to expire on April 30, we urge the Senate to advance and adopt repeal as
expeditiously as possible,” wrote the Gang of 14. Majority Leader Andrea
Stewart-Cousins said of the now-admitted Team Cuomo coverup, “Crucial
information should never be withheld from entities that are empowered to pursue
oversight.”
Earlier in the week, the state Senate Health Committee
moved several bills to increase accountability and oversight of New York’s
nursing-home industry. Until now, despite 15,000 care-home COVID deaths,
Democrats had held off from calling out the failures of Cuomo and Health Commissioner
Dr. Howard Zucker.
State Attorney General Letitia James’ scathing report on
Team Cuomo’s actions was one key step toward the rebellion. Then top Cuomo
aide Melissa
DeRosa’s confession of the long coverup broke the dam; one Democratic
lawmaker said of the DeRosa conference call, “The wheels are starting to fall
off.”
Democratic lawmakers shouldn’t buy Team Cuomo’s claim
that fears of a federal probe by the Trump Justice Department were the reason
for withholding damning info. As Bill Hammond writes for The Post, Zucker
started hiding the truth months earlier.
Democratic and Republican legislators have been on
separate tracks when it comes to probing this scandal, with GOP lawmakers
howling and Dems reluctant to call out “their” governor. Democrats even
thwarted Republican efforts to subpoena top Cuomo officials. State Sen. James
Skoufis, chair of the Senate Investigations Committee, even muted the mic of
his GOP colleague Tom O’Mara to quash a subpoena motion.
The virus kills Democrats, Republicans and independents
without discrimination. This issue demands a nonpartisan approach, with no
regard for damage control for the governor and his legislative allies.
Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), who lost an uncle to the
virus, has sought bipartisan support for his measure creating a nonpartisan
commission to investigate the nursing-home fiasco and to hold the Cuomo
administration accountable. That measure is a start — and it looks like Kim’s
Democratic colleagues are warming to the idea.
https://nypost.com/2021/02/12/democrats-in-rebellion-against-cuomos-nursing-home-coverup/
