Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is facing mounting criticism amid calls to curtail his emergency authority and even for his impeachment over an alleged cover-up of deaths from Covid-19 in New York State's nursing homes.
The governor has been accused of deliberately underreporting the number of deaths from Covid-19 in nursing homes and of trying to conceal that information, fearing a federal investigation. He is also alleged to have threatened to "destroy" Assemblyman Ron Kim, one of nine legislators who signed a letter accusing him of obstructing justice over his administration's handling of nursing homes during the pandemic.
Pressure has been building on the governor since the Jan. 28 release of State Attorney General Letitia James's report on nursing homes' response to the pandemic, which states that investigations had revealed that the State Health Department had undercounted Covid-19 deaths in publicly reported data. The governor has also faced criticism over patients discharged from hospitals back into nursing homes, the implication being that this allowed the virus to spread among the elderly, who are among the most vulnerable populations to it.
The F.B.I., the federal Department of Justice, and the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York opened inquiries into the governor's handling of nursing homes during the pandemic.
Democratic leaders of the State Senate are moving to strip the governor, who is also a Democrat, of unilateral emergency powers granted during the pandemic. Chapter 23 of the Laws of 2020 permits the governor to issue by executive order any directive necessary to respond to a state disaster emergency.
Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. said in a statement last week that he has "long supported the curtailing of the governor's emergency authority" granted last year "and a return to the traditional emergency authority granted to governors under the Executive Law."
Mr. Thiele noted that he had co-sponsored legislation last May that would have "ensured the Legislature's rightful role as a co-equal branch of government during a state disaster emergency declaration" by making the governor's actions subject to review every 30 days. He voted for a similar, Republican-sponsored amendment in December. "This should not be a partisan issue," he said in his Feb. 16 statement, "but a matter of protecting constitutional checks and balances."
Newsday reported that Melissa DeRosa, the governor's chief of staff, had told Senate and Assembly members last week that the administration hedged when the Legislature asked for information about nursing home deaths because of the Justice Department inquiry. The governor and former President Trump were regularly at odds, and Mr. Trump regularly used the Justice Department to aid friends and punish foes.
Ms. DeRosa voiced concern that information the governor's administration provided to the federal government would be used against it in an investigation, and said that the federal government was prioritized over the Legislature in order to avoid a charge of obstruction of justice.
The governor alluded to that in remarks to the press on Friday. "We got a request from the Department of Justice in August -- with other Democratic governors only, by the way," he said, asserting that his administration had provided accurate numbers on Covid-19 deaths. "It is a lie to say any numbers were inaccurate," he said. When state legislators also requested information, "We said we would pause the State Legislature's request because we gave [the Justice Department] precedence."
The State Senate approved a range of bills relating to nursing homes on Monday, including one that would require the Health Department to report Covid-19 deaths of nursing home residents who died in a hospital. Until recently, the state reported only the number of nursing home residents who died at the nursing home; those who died at a hospital were counted in statewide deaths.
In remarks to the press on Feb. 15, the governor referred to federal Centers for Disease Control guidance from March 2020 "sending people from hospitals back to nursing homes." New York and several other states had followed that guidance, he said. The reasoning at that time was that nursing home residents leaving hospitals "were not likely to be contagious because at that time the viral load is so low that you're not contagious."
Senior citizens in particular should not remain in hospitals longer than necessary, he said, given the risks of secondary infection. At the time, he added, experts were projecting as many as 140,000 people hospitalized with Covid-19 in New York, which had fewer than 50,000 hospital beds.
The governor also said on Feb. 15 that "Covid did not get into nursing homes by people from hospitals," rather by staff and, possibly, visitors, "because national experts all told us you could only spread Covid if you had symptoms."
Howard Zucker, the state's health commissioner, echoed that statement on Friday, telling the press that the coronavirus "came in through the staff. We found 37,000 staff that have been infected. It came in asymptomatically; it came in inadvertently by dedicated staff. No one is criticizing the staff for this. We were back at a time when we didn't even know about asymptomatic spread."
Ninety-eight percent of nursing homes that accepted admission from a hospital "already had Covid in that facility," he said.
