Mission Creep in the Empire State

Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York State, announced yesterday that he was teaming up with five neighboring states’ governors to calibrate a strategy for reopening the state’s economy. He is apparently open to having other state governors join in. Much was made of being “smart” and guided by “experts.”

Which is fine, except… he had no trouble at all with unilaterally shutting the entire state down a few weeks ago. Oh, how hard it is to surrender control once you’ve grabbed it. The announcement appears to create the false sense that something is actually going to happen:

Cuomo has repeatedly refused to put a date on when the economy will re-open as the coronavirus creates an unpredictable future, and he did so again on Monday. But, he said, now is the time to start planning for the day life returns to normal — whenever that day might be.

“We have to be smart,” Cuomo said. “You need the best public health plan and you need the best economic reactivation plan. It’s not either or — it has to be both.”

The article goes on to suggest his concern is that “without a unified reopening process, people will travel across state lines if, for example, bars reopen in one state and not another.” Funny; this is the governor who threatened to sue Gov. Raimondo of Rhode Island when she instructed police to pull over cars with New York plates because she didn’t want people fleeing the epicenter of COVID-19 to bring it to Rhode Island. We are all one family, he argued. Throughout the state’s shutdown, you could travel within the state freely, leave the state, and even travel by air out of NYC to any region in the world. Yet when it comes to releasing control on citizens, he is suddenly quite careful.

What about Rhode Island governor Raimondo, who responded to Cuomo’s threat of a lawsuit by saying he was welcome to try and sue her, but she was on firm legal ground? The spat between the two governors is clearly over. She is part of the now 7-state coalition acting as a brake on reopening the Northeast and speaks of “looking at everything from how we screen people entering businesses to how we utilize more touchless technologies in our day-to-day interactions.”

Screening people? Requiring new and expensive technology? Seriously?

Just get out of the way, Governors. Remove the stay-at-home orders and insist that businesses find creative, appropriate ways to continue enforcing hand-washing and social distancing measures. The original purpose of the shutdown was to prevent hospitals from being overrun. As a resident of upstate New York, I can verify that this has not happened, and now the “curve is flattening.” The state’s businesses are operated by adults fully capable of implementing measures to ensure that they and their employees stay healthy.

They don’t call this the “Empire State” for nothing. But it’s not, constitutionally, an empire run by a supreme leader. Put down the scepter and back slowly away, Governor. Health is in everyone’s best interest; tyranny and bureaucracy are in no one’s.