Democratic New York state senator: Cuomo’s emergency pandemic powers 'no longer' necessary

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‘No longer any need’ for Cuomo to have extreme emergency powers: New York state senator

New York State Sen. John Liu calls for the revocation of some emergency powers previously granted to the state’s governor.

New York Democratic State Sen. John Liu is calling for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to be stripped of his emergency powers amid ongoing controversy over the Democratic administration's withholding of data on nursing home deaths from coronavirus.

Liu is one of several lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have criticized Cuomo’s order requiring nursing homes to accept coronavirus-positive patients released from hospitals. The directive was enacted on March 25 and rescinded in May.

Liu joined Sandra Smith on "America Reports" to explain why he feels it’s time for the governor’s emergency powers to be revoked.

JOHN LIU: The governor has exercised a great deal of unilateral power over the past year, because of a pandemic that has swept the world and, early on, claimed so many New Yorkers’ lives.

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We granted those powers to him a year ago when there was very little known about COVID-19 … We wanted to make sure that state government was in a position to move quickly and with agility to save people's lives and to keep people healthy. We didn't want any bureaucracy to stand in the way of that.

Nearly a year later, now we know a lot more about the coronavirus, know how to deal with it, [and] how to treat it.

There's just no longer any need for these extreme emergency powers. So we're looking to take those away.

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[Cuomo] was like a hero to so many Americans, and indeed, people watching him all over the world. Now that these revelations, and it has been a string of revelations that have really cast into doubt some of his credibility, he needs to fix it and fix it quickly. That means coming forth with information. Information that, quite frankly, my colleagues and I, we've been waiting for that information for months, and it's information that our constituents have been demanding of us.

I don't think it's too late for Governor Cuomo to get back on the right track, but he's got to do so quickly.

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The governor kind of dug himself up quite a bit deeper in his news conference yesterday. We'll see what he says today. But as much as he's got to do things to right the ship on his end, we in the legislature are also to make things right.

A year ago, those emergency powers were necessary. Today, they no longer seem necessary.