Cuomo slams ruling blocking virus limits on NY houses of worship
ALBANY, N.Y. — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo accused the U.S. Supreme Court of political partisanship Thursday after the justices narrowly rejected his coronavirus-based restrictions on religious services. He played down the impact of the ruling, suggesting that it was a reflection of the court’s emboldened new conservative majority.
The decision by the Supreme Court l ate Wednesday to suspend the 10- and 25-person capacity limitations on churches and other houses of worship in New York would seem to be a rebuke to Cuomo, who had previously won a series of legal battles over his emergency powers.
“You have a different court, and I think that was the statement that the court was making,” Cuomo said, noting worries in some quarters after President Donald Trump nominated three conservative justices on the Supreme Court in the past four years.
“We know who he appointed to the court. We know their ideology.”
The j ustices split 5-4, with new Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the majority. The court’s three liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts dissented.
The move was a shift for the court.
Earlier this year, when
Barrett’s liberal predecessor, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was still on the court, the justices divided 5-4 to leave in place pandemicrelated capacity restrictions affecting churches in California and Nevada.
Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, insisted the ruling “doesn’t have any practical effect” because the restrictions on religious services in Brooklyn, as well as similar ones in Queens and the city’s northern suburbs, had since been eased after the positive test rates in those areas had declined.
But less stringent capacity restrictions, also rejected by the Supreme Court’s decision, are still in place in six other counties, including in Staten Island.
After Cuomo’s remarks, Beth Garvey, his legal counsel, said that the state believed the court’s opinion affected only the nowlapsed restrictions in Brooklyn, and that the other six zones would remain intact.
Still, she added that officials would “be looking around the state at the other zones” and evaluating capacity restrictions.
Legal experts said that despite the governor’s assertion that the decision was limited to parishes and other houses of worship in Brooklyn, the court’s ruling could be used to challenge and overturn other restrictions elsewhere.