Assemblyman Chris Tague (R,C,I-Schoharie) joined his Assembly Minority colleagues in a press conference calling on Majority members of the Oversight, Health, and Aging committees to sign a petition requesting a public hearing in response to the attorney general’s scathing nursing home report. Assembly Minority members specifically hope to use subpoena powers of the committees, pursuant to Section 62-A of Article 4 of the Legislative Law, to call on New York State Commissioner of Health Dr. Howard A. Zucker to testify and provide all data on nursing home deaths, as well as all communications from the DOH and other parties that led to the decision to craft, implement, and override its March 25 directive.

The letter was written as lawmakers found a legal legislative workaround that would bypass needing a committee chairperson to issue a subpoena. Legislative law allows for a majority of a legislative committee to issue a subpoena. Collecting a majority of signatures would formalize the ability to subpoena Dr. Zucker and compel him to answer questions about a scandal that has ravaged tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

“The time is now to do the right thing, and all we need from our Majority colleagues is for them to simply sign a subpoena to get New York families the answers they’ve sought for months about this terrible tragedy in our nursing homes,” said Tague. “The attorney general was able to put her partisanship aside and seek the truth in this matter, so we can only hope the committee members we’ve written to will stand up for justice as well. If there was ever a matter worth looking into for the Oversight, Health, and Aging committees, I would think the cover-up of thousands of preventable deaths of our seniors due to government action would be it.”

Letter may be viewed here.