Assemblyman Robert Smullen (R,C,I,SAM-Meco) blasted the governor for profitingfrom a book detailing the importance of leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the now-public knowledge that his administration oversaw the disastrous health policy of placing COVID-positive patients into nursing home facilities and subsequently covering up the true number of COVID-related deaths in those facilities. As part of a joint press conference, including legislators from the Assembly and Senate, Smullen is continuing to push for accountability of leadership.

​“The entirety of the last few weeks feels incredibly cynical, as the governor has continually made moves to protect his public image and turn press attention away from the very real problem that he and his administration made bad leadership decisions during the pandemic,” Smullen said. “With the revelation that the governor is pocketing the profits of his memoir that was not only written during a time when his public leadership was riddled with poor judgement, but may also have been written with use of taxpayer dollars and public employees labor, it’s clear the governor’s priorities are wrong. The legislation we introduce today will take steps to ensure no public official is making profits off the suffering of our citizens or at the expense of taxpayers while they hold office.”

The governor has taken several steps recently to clean up his public image, even changing spokesmen recently and always attacking those who would speak the truth. “Last week, the governor’s current spokesman called me a ‘craven politician’ for demanding the governor to follow CDC guidelines on the mask mandate and social distancing rules,” said Smullen. “Today, as we held our press conference, he conveniently set the mandate to end in New York. And with the governor hiding from reporters in Albany, it’s clear that his strategy is to avoid public scrutiny at any cost,” Smullen concluded.