Top Assistant Melissa DeRosa is joined by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo as she addresses reporters at a press conference in New York on September 14, 2018. | Mary Altaffer / AP Photo
ALBANY, NY – When Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s top aide told Democratic lawmakers this week about why the government was slow to inquire about nursing home deaths, she appeared to be trying to dispel the smoldering rumors of a cover-up.
Instead, the assistant, Melissa DeRosa, tossed gasoline on a fire that by Friday had enveloped Cuomo’s legacy of effective leadership during the Covid-19 crisis – something he hoped would parallel in a fourth term next year.
Republicans demanded the removal of Cuomo.
There were calls for his top personnel to resign.
And members of the governor’s own party – who had largely softened their criticism amid budget talks – began to publicly and forcefully turn against him.
“They have left us in the dark every step of the way,” Assembly member Ron Kim, a Queens Democrat, told POLITICO. “That’s why we’re here.”
The administration’s treatment of nursing homes is now an outright scandal – a stunning turnaround for Cuomo, whose early treatment of the pandemic and high-profile daily press conferences earned him high approval ratings, an Emmy, and a book deal.
Now many fellow Democrats want to write an epilogue.
When Cuomo left for Washington on Friday to meet with President Joe Biden about the response to a pandemic, at least 14 Democrats from the left flank of the state legislature called for the revocation of the governor’s emergency powers – Detected almost 11 months ago – who gave him almost unilateral authority during the pandemic. And momentum seems to be growing in the legislature to exercise more scrutiny.
“It is clear that the extensive emergency powers granted to the governor are no longer appropriate,” lawmakers said in a statement released Friday morning.
Cuomo has already faced increasing backlash for his handling of the nursing home crisis. Wednesday’s appeal with DeRosa was designed to re-establish relationships with frustrated Democrats who said Cuomo shut them out of the state’s response.
She told lawmakers the administration “froze” after the Justice Department launched an investigation into Cuomo’s management of nursing homes. State officials refrained from releasing the data, she said, out of concern that President Donald Trump was trying to turn the tragedy “into giant political football.”
“We were in a position where we were not sure if what we were going to give to the Justice Department, or what we were going to give to you, and what we were starting to say would be used against us and we were.” not sure if there would be an investigation, ”DeRosa said at the meeting, according to a partial transcript.
The comments – first reported Thursday evening by the New York Post, which received a recording of the call – drew widespread criticism in New York on Friday and marked an attempt by Cuomo assistants to rephrase DeRosa’s comments.
The Ministry of Justice announced last August that it was considering investigating whether New York and other Democratic-led states have violated the civil rights of nursing home residents by admitting Covid-19 patients into the facilities. Federal officials asked for data from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan – all of which issued controversial orders to admit medically stable Covid-19-positive patients to long-term care settings as hospitals were inundated last spring.
Although it is unclear how many nursing homes were involved to the DOJ request – which appeared to focus only on state-run facilities – DeRosa released a statement on Friday saying the probe trumped requests from New York lawmakers.
“I explained that when we received the DOJ investigation, we had to temporarily set aside the legislature’s request to deal with the federal request first,” De Rosa said in a statement released Friday morning. “We informed the houses of this at the time. We were comprehensive and transparent in our responses to the DOJ.”
But the top Democrats in Albany pushed back on that claim, saying government officials had asked for more time to gather the information but failed to reveal their specific rationale.
“Besides what’s reported in the news, [Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie] had no knowledge of an official Justice Department investigation, ‘Heastie spokesman Michael Whyland said in a statement.
Senate leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said in a statement that she, too, was unhappy with the way Cuomo’s office had handled requests from lawmakers for information on deaths in nursing homes.
“Politics should not be part of this tragic pandemic and our responses to it should be guided by policy, not politics,” Stewart-Cousins said in a statement.
Senate sources say leadership is much closer to limiting the governor’s authority than they have publicly admitted.
“We basically had a conference on this type of executive on Monday,” said a source, asking anonymity to speak of closed-door negotiations. The momentum was in the removal of executive powers. The latest revelation – this is about to close. ”
The Senate already signaled It could refute the Cuomo’s government’s treatment of Covid-19 in nursing homes and announce plans to shift a series of long-term care bills, including legislation to ensure that the Department of Health’s regular reporting on the nursing home and the adult care facility Covid-19-related deaths, including residents who died in hospitals.
Recently pushing for his continuing powers, Cuomo was quick to recall that his authority came with a provision that the legislature has the ability to challenge each of its decisions, something the agency has not tried since its approval in March last year.
And it is unclear whether the reinforced executive authority influenced the state’s response to Covid-19 in nursing homes – particularly a transfer policy from March 25 cited by many critics as the reason thousands of New Yorkers died in long-term care facilities. (Asymptomatic spread, inadequate protective equipment and lax infection control policy also referred to as culprits
But the cries to rein Cuomo stem from months of frustration with the administration’s handling of nursing home deaths, legitimized by both a report by Attorney General Letitia James and a court order that led to the release of new songs the state’s death toll in long-term care Covid-19 from about 9,000 to about 15,000, including suspected and confirmed cases.
“It’s something that will complicate an existing political controversy, but it’s not a crime or anything like that,” said a longtime government official. “It’s fodder for those who want to keep the issue alive.”
Kim, an outspoken critic of the nursing home governor’s response, is the chair of the Assembly Aging Committee and one of those currently infamous with Cuomo’s administration. He said he understands the logic of the state, but DeRosa’s characterization makes no sense.
“There was clearly an attempt not to share the information even before the Justice Department issued that letter,” he said, adding that those questions are likely to dominate a budget hearing scheduled for February 25.
Kim said that while he “got to work” for the governor by his request to back the emergency force, he now feels “very disappointed and a little betrayed.”
Senate committee chair Gustavo Rivera, a Bronx Democrat who opposed Cuomo last winter, said he was not disappointed by the governor’s office’s lack of transparency, as he never expected it in the first place.
“Why should I be surprised?” he said.
Rivera said the meeting with senior staff, in which he participated, actually eased tensions between the government and legislative Democrats – a detente that now appears to have been quashed.
“When you consider that they had held us back for seven months, and then they sat down for what almost amounted to a three-hour meeting with some of the top people in the administration, that is clearly a change in tone,” said Rivera in an interview. “That’s the first thing we hope will be a lot of conversations.”
Cuomo has not formally commented on the most recent revelations about his administration’s action. The Governor was in Washington DC for a rare personal discussion with President Joe Biden about the billions of dollars he and the leaders of other states are asking to support their Covid battles.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was asked during a briefing on Friday whether Biden, who has touted the importance of transparency to the country’s recovery, had confidence in Cuomo’s government in light of the recent report.
“The president received Gov. Cuomo and a bipartisan group of governors and mayors in the White House today to get their perspective from the front line, to not give anyone a stamp of approval or to seek their stamp of approval,” she said.