Assemblyman Chris Tague (R,C,I-Schoharie) doubled down on demands he and his colleagues in the Minority Assembly Conference have been making for months to subpoena State Health Commissioner Howard Zucker following a budget hearing held Thursday in which Zucker spoke to lawmakers about health-related budget measures. During the hearing, Zucker provided few answers of substance regarding the Cuomo administration’s cover-up of nursing home fatality data and concerns about the rationale behind the implementation of a controversial order that mandated the placement of COVID-19-positive patients into nursing home facilities.

“What happened this week in Albany, or really what didn’t happen in Albany, demonstrates exactly why many people have less faith in their government than ever,” said Tague. “After learning over the last few weeks that thousands more people died in our nursing homes than we ever knew, and that the governor worked to cover it up and verbally threaten those who refuse be complicit in his scheme, we held session for only a few hours over three days and did practically nothing of worth for the people, all while ignoring the big elephant in the chamber. This hearing today was more of the same, stonewalling, finger-pointing and avoiding accountability at all costs.

“Many of my Majority colleagues in the media have talked a lot about doing the right thing, but this week that talk fizzled into more excuses being made, and nothing of consequence being done legislatively to rescind the governor’s emergency powers and investigate the over 15,000 deaths he didn’t want us to know about. Never before have we seen a more clear-cut matter of right and wrong put before us as legislators, and, frankly, if you are more concerned with the perception of your party and its leaders than standing up for justice in the wake of a cover-up of an unprecedented loss of life, I don’t see what business you have serving as a representative of the people.”