Sen. Tom O’Mara, who represents a district in the Southern Tier and Finger Lakes, was muted during a meeting on Monday after he called for subpoena’s to the state Department of Health.
O’Mara is a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations. He called for the subpoenas after a damning Attorney General’s report late last week.
Sen. James Skoufis dismissed the motion on a procedural argument.
“It is time for the Senate Democrat Majority to stop stonewalling and protecting Governor Cuomo on the nursing homes crisis. In the wake of the attorney general’s report, the failure of the Investigations Committee to immediately issue subpoenas and demand testimony from Governor Cuomo and his administration once again completely abandons legislative responsibility. It makes the Senate Democrats complicit in this tragedy. Every step of the way, the Senate Democrat Majority has been willing to give the Cuomo administration every opportunity to keep trying to cover its tracks and rewrite its false story on nursing homes,” O’Mara said after.
He advanced the motion pursuant to Section 62-a of the Legislative Law, which states in part “the chairman, vice-chairman or a majority of a legislative committee may issue a subpoena requiring a person to attend before the committee and be examined in reference to any matter within the scope of the inquiry or investigation being conducted by the committee.”
For months, Senate Republicans have called for the Senate Majority to take action and issue subpoenas as Cuomo’s office refused to release accurate nursing home numbers.
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