Senate Democrats in New York’s capital obstruct GOP’s effort to subpoena records linked to the governor’s nursing home scandal. Republican Sen. Thomas O Mara reacts.
New York’s state legislature is putting up roadblocks for Republican lawmakers trying to investigate the Cuomo administration s handling of the coronavirus pandemic in nursing homes.
New York s Democrat supermajority on Monday blocked a motion to subpoena records of the Cuomo administration. The New York Post reported that the motion was made by Sen. Thomas O’Mara, the ranking Republican on the Investigations Committee panel during a virtual meeting. I brought that motion, the chairman of this committee has talked about issuing subpoenas on this matter for months. You know, the bombshell report from the attorney general last week on the nursing home deaths, so we felt it was the appropriate time to finally push the issue, O’Mara told Fox & Friends First on Wednesday.
HEADLINES & GLOBAL NEWS
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Feb 02, 2021 04:31 AM EST
The mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in alleged under-reporting by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The NY GOP s attempts to get records are hampered by NY State Democrats blocking subpoenas that indicated no transparency.
Months back, NYC was the locus of the outbreak killing many people in their homes and nursing homes. Now, the virus is back, retaking lives in the Democrat-led state.
Lack of transparency
During the affair, one incident is when NYC DEMS shut off a GOP member s microphone while speaking. The Republicans attempt in New York to get in records from the nursing homes was frustrated by DEMS. Sources say that they were preventing a subpoena from obtaining the proof of Democrat mismanagement, reported the Blaze.
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2 Feb 2021
New York State Senate Democrats blocked a subpoena for nursing home fatality data on Monday, mere days after New York Attorney General Letitia James released a damning report indicating Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) administration had “undercounted” the number of coronavirus-related fatalities in nursing homes “by as much as 50 percent.”
Sen. Thomas O’Mara, the top Republican serving on the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations, made the motion on Monday during a virtual meeting. The Republican lawmaker said he wanted to “make sure we get to the bottom” of the irregularities in reporting the data on coronavirus-related fatalities in nursing homes.
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Source: AP Photo/Mike Groll
When New York Attorney General Letitia James released her office s report on the number of COVID-related nursing home deaths, it was shocking but not entirely surprising based on the stonewalling the press has received from the Cuomo administration. The report confirmed rumors that the New York Department of Health had severely undercounted the fatalities, for they failed to include those individuals who died after being transferred to hospitals. According to James s office, their reporting finds that the number may have been undercounted by as much as 50 percent.
And New York lawmakers are moving quickly, demanding accountability from the administration. New York state Sen. Tom O Mara thinks a good starting place is to subpoena Health Commissioner Howard Zucker. He advanced a motion to do so during Monday s Senate Investigations Committee meeting.