Legislature must reclaim the power it ceded to Cuomo

On Wednesday, 40 state lawmakers will begin their first term with the traditional oath to support the United States and New York state constitutions. These freshmen lawmakers will have sworn their oath, however, at a moment when their power has been surrendered to the governor by

Christopher Paolillo is a trustee on the West Babylon School Board and the educational coordinator for Changenys.org, a nonprofit that promotes honest, open, transparent and limited government in New York. their predecessors. And returning incumbents will enter the new session just as powerless as they were during the previous one.

All 213 lawmakers should consider how constitutional power can be so easily surrendered by elected representatives, yet difficult to reclaim.

Despite some lawmakers’ concerns about the sweeping powers they were granting the executive, the Legislature on March 3 overhwelmingly approved, in bipartisan votes in both the Assembly and Senate, a measure allowing “the governor to issue by executive order any directive necessary to respond to a state disaster emergency.” This law, signed by Gov.

Andrew Cuomo, effectively granted unchecked and expanded executive powers in response to the COVID -19 pandemic until April 2021.

Bipartisan legislation would generally be a cause for celebration, but this surrender of power has not echoed well outside of Albany. What has

become all too common, besides obvious health concerns, is anticipating how the next unchecked executive order handed down from the governor’s office will affect all of us. These sometimes broad and arguably inconsistent executive directives have affected many aspects of daily life, such as our children's education, small-business ownership, employment, and the overall local economy, to name a few.

Seasonal politicking and growing accountability questions have had many lawmakers distancing themselves from their March 3 stance, or lack thereof. But in the absence of a clear legal means for those in the minority to reverse the amended executive law, elected officials find themselves struggling to reclaim the constitutional power that they previously aided in surrendering.

Those who are now dissenting are left with the powerless task of pleading with the majority or waiting until April in hopes an extension of the current law does not occur. Neither option offers the assurance that only a constitution could grant.

Support for the circumventing of checks and balances was undoubtedly intended to expedite government action and response to a growing pandemic. Despite the initial justification, the political unity in the face of a crisis has been short-lived and has become a partisan obstacle rather than a bipartisan achievement.

The buyer’s remorse could not be more evident than in the December 15, 2020, petition from 42 members of the Assembly Minority Conference to the Senate and Assembly majority leadership, stating, “[H]opefully on the first day of the 2021 Legislative Session, if not sooner — we encourage the passage of legislation such as A.10546, which would limit the governor’s expanded powers and dramatically increase local authority during future emergencies.” The letter concludes with the plea, “From a philosophical, operational, and now legal perspective, it is clear that the Legislature must resume its rightful place as a co-equal branch of government.”

This historic pandemic should signal a monumental lesson for both sides of the aisle about governing during a crisis. Once the intended legal structure of state government is restored, our lawmakers in Albany — and all New Yorkers — should reflect on how they can prevent power from once again being surrendered so decisively to any single branch of government. Our elected representatives should also consider that it is the oath-bound constitution, not the crisis, that grants them the lawmaking power they are now struggling to reclaim.