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Dear friend,

Three weeks ago, the Attorney General issued a shocking report stating that New York State had underreported the death toll from covid by approximately 50%. Last week, in a leaked conversation reported in the news, a top aide to Governor Cuomo admitted that the state intentionally withheld this information from the public - despite months of requests by the Legislature - because it feared an investigation by the Trump Justice Department.

Trump or no Trump, knowingly and intentionally withholding information about something as serious as 15,000 deaths in nursing homes is a violation of the public trust.

Last spring, when we started to get our first glimpse of what was happening in nursing homes, Assemblymember Ron Kim and I were the first to introduce legislation to address the nursing home crisis: [[link removed]]

When I heard the news last week that information was being intentionally withheld, I was one of the first of my colleagues to call for full accountability and a revocation of the Governor’s broad emergency powers [[link removed]] .

COVID-19 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 judgements. In voting to grant the Governor broad emergency powers last spring, there was an unwritten covenant that the Governor would be trusted with this extraordinary responsibility and in return, he would be honest and transparent with the public.

It is now clear that that trust was not reciprocated. And so, I believe it is no longer appropriate - or necessary - for the Governor to wield such expanded emergency powers.

The foundation of our government is trust that our leaders are being honest and transparent with us. When that trust is violated, we must take steps to rebuild it. Right now, that means the legislature must reassert its oversight authority over the Governor’s actions and, as a co-equal branch of government, must be included in decision-making moving forward.

This is not about micromanaging a public health crisis. This is not about having health designations and directives issued by legislative committees. This is, very simply, about transparency, accountability, and repairing a broken trust.

If you have any questions about any of this, please reach out.

In Service,

Andrew

[[link removed]]
[www.AndrewGounardes.com]



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