Statement from Senator Daphne Jordan on offering an amendment during Senate Session to rescind Governor Cuomo’s expanded powers and help restore the legislature as a coequal branch of state government

“On behalf of our Senate Republican Conference, during session yesterday I offered a common-sense amendment to rescind Governor Cuomo’s expanded emergency powers and restore much-needed checks and balances to our state government. Yesterday marked the twelfth time that we have pushed to reassert ourselves and re-establish the necessary separation of powers so vital to our democracy. New Yorkers have endured this administration’s arbitrary economic restrictions, fumbled vaccine rollout, as well as its disastrous and deadly nursing home scandal. The Governor is not a king and the continuation of his one-person rule is antithetical to democracy.

In recent weeks we have seen the State Attorney General’s bombshell report on nursing homes and learned of the mass exodus of State Department of Health officials. Our Senate Republican Conference continues calling for an independent investigation of New York’s nursing home tragedies and true accountability and transparency. My colleagues and I again urged the Senate Majority to stop turning a blind eye to the Cuomo administration’s failings. This issue is bigger than partisan politics: it’s about doing what’s right, and the state legislature reasserting its rightful prerogative as a coequal branch of our state government to ensure proper checks and balances. While it is disappointing that the Senate Democratic Majority did not join us in our push for good government and greater accountability from Albany, we will continue working toward a restoration of checks and balances necessary for a better New York State.”

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