June 4th, 2020

As New York moves to recover from the Coronavirus and the riots and destruction following the death of George Floyd, so should the functions of state government, especially the legislative process and the checks and balance system that protects the taxpayers, Assemblyman Joe DeStefano said.

“As the virus swept through our state, Governor Cuomo assumed unprecedented powers over almost every aspect of our lives and made himself the sole authority on how tax dollars are spent,” DeStefano pointed out. “We must return to a representative form of government if our state is to fully recover.”

Over the last few months, the governor has run the state through executive orders and has set policies on everything from voting and hospitals to public gatherings and the economic reopening. “These actions, including the changing of the state's presidential primary from April to June, would have required an act of the legislature under normal circumstances,” DeStefano said.

After years of mismanagement under Cuomo and the Progressive Democrats who control every aspect of state government, the virus put New York in a dire economic mess and only a massive federal bailout will keep it afloat.

“It seems unlikely that Congress is going to dig us out of this hole completely and we are facing draconian cuts in state spending,” DeStefano said. “How these cuts to school aid, hospitals, transportation, infrastructure, health care, and other state spending should not rest with one man.”

Compounding the effects of the Corona shutdown is the devastation and destruction caused by the anarchists who took the opportunity of George Floyd’s death to wreak havoc. The very communities that were decimated from the virus now have to contend with the aftermath of the riots.

In addition to economic issues, one man alone should not control how the state should evaluate the response to the virus and riots and prepare for future incidents.

“The decision to force nursing homes to accept patients affected with Covid-19 was a tragic one as these care facilities became the epicenter for virus deaths,” DeStefano noted. “A full, unbiased review of what went wrong should be conducted by authorities not controlled by the governor,” he said, adding that a return to a functioning legislative process will allow for public hearings on how the administration handled the pandemic and make sure we are ready for the next one. 

Public hearings and a full public review of the riots and race relations in the state are also called for and shouldn’t be auspices of just one person.

Among the steps DeStefano and his assembly colleagues have taken is a bill requiring the governor to provide monthly reports on the crisis to the legislature and give the co-equal branch more say in how disaster declarations are extended.

“Involving the officials elected to represent every part of our state will provide a better outcome than putting all of the authority in a single person,” DeStefano said.

Another issue that cannot be swept under the carpet by the virus is the repeal of the new bail laws that wreaked havoc with our criminal justice system and increased crime across the state. “Bail reform was a critical issue before the virus struck and didn’t just go away,” DeStefano said. “The governor and the legislature need to make the repeal of the terrible new bail laws a priority if we are to ever bring our state completely back to normal.”

With the governor talking about “Contact Tracers” to keep track of citizens and Depression-era recovery programs such as massive public works projects, this is a critical junction in the history of the Empire State. “We need to make sure all voices are represented in these unprecedented times and the best way to do that is to rely on the representative form of government that has served us well for hundreds of years.”