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New Yorkers receive the vaccine, the temporary emergency powers have served their purpose - it is time for them to be repealed," Speaker Heastie said.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."
RELATED | Gov. Cuomo faces calls to resign after 3rd accuser comes forward
Several grassroots organizations staged a rally Tuesday outside Cuomo's Midtown offices. They say three separate accusations of sexual harassment, a public uproar surrounding the governor's handling of nursing home deaths and threats of political retribution to those who oppose him are sure signs the chief executive is no longer fit to lead New York.
Neither Cuomo nor his spokespeople have commented on the latest allegation made against him Monday night. A woman told The New York Times that Cuomo touched her lower back, then grabbed her cheeks and asked to kiss her at a September 2019 wedding.
Kathleen Rice is the first Democrat from the New York Congressional delegation to call on Cuomo to resign. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican, said she thinks his days in Albany are numbered.
However, most leading Democrats have signaled they want to wait for the results of an investigation by New York Attorney General Letitia James into claims that Cuomo sexually harassed at least two women in his administration.
State Democratic Party chair Jay Jacobs, a close Cuomo ally, said it's "premature" to opine before the investigation concludes. That inquiry has yet to begin. James said her office is working to hire an outside law firm to conduct it.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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