“My colleagues and I returned to Albany to take action on some important legislation. Among the bipartisan bills passed included providing administrative flexibility to our local governments, securing new grant funding for small businesses to purchase personal protective equipment or other needed resources to protect their employees and customers and creating new whistleblower protections for healthcare workers who expose unsafe practices in their workplaces.

“We still have so much more work to do. The Majority defeated our amendment to curb the governor’s emergency powers and restore the checks and balances enshrined in our constitution in a largely party-line vote.

“As a Legislature, we must fully embrace our oversight responsibilities. We must hold hearings that get to the bottom of what happened in our nursing homes. The loved ones of 5,800 New Yorkers deserve answers. We need to deliver accountability.

“We also need to hold bipartisan hearings that focus on The Department of Labor’s continued inefficiency. Our constituents who lost their jobs through no fault of their own are desperate for the help they deserve. We need to deliver for them,” said Ra.