NY Help Stop Mask Mandates

New bills in the New York legislature seek to make permanent Governor Andrew Cuomo’s temporary Executive Orders allowing business owners to require employees and customers to wear face masks. The mask requirement began on March 7 with Cuomo’s Executive Order 202.17, and business were given explicit authority to refuse service to people without masks with Executive Order 202.34 issued on May 28. Executive Orders remain in effect for only thirty days and then must be renewed. Cuomo’s emergency power to rule by edict will expire next spring. But the proposed law has no end date. And it could be the beginning of a whole range of bills to make permanent other parts of the covid 19 Executive Order regime.

This bill is just another of the many bills passed and proposed since 2018 that steadily take away medical decision making away from individuals and parents of minors, and gives that power to politicians, bureaucrats, businesses, anyone but the person who will need to live with the consequences of the decision, and who will have to pay for it.

New York State Senator Todd Kaminsky (D-Long Beach) introduced Senate Bill S8559a, and Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal (D-Upper Westside) introduced the identical Assembly Bill A10694.

These bills are completely redundant. Current Executive Orders already achieve the purported goals of the proposed law. One would assume that when Cuomo believes the Executive Orders are no longer necessary, he will stop renewing them. These bills will simply saddle us with a new permanent silly law. One thing is clear, even by the logic of the Cuomo administration, it does nothing new to protect public health.

Please click on the link on bottom of page to send a message to your State Senator and Assemblymember as well as Kaminsky and Rosenthal, and the Governor, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart Cousins and Speak of the Assembly Carl Heastie, to express your opposition to this bill.

And please get on the phone and call your State Senator and Assemblymember, as well as sponsors Kaminsky and Rosenthal while you are at it and let them know politely that you oppose this bill.

State Senator Todd Kaminsky, (516) 766-8383, (518) 455-3401

Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal (212) 873-6368, (518) 455-5172

Please call your State Senator and Assemblymember and let them know you oppose this bill. They aren’t in the office much these days so you will probably have to leave a message.

One of the worst tendencies of legislators is “Dosomethingism.” Problems arise and legislators want to be seen “doing something” about the problem. Frequently, they don’t much care what it is that they do, they care even less about the consequences doing something might have, they just don’t want to be caught not “doing something.” So they will pass any kind of stupid law as long as they can say they did something. This law seems like a good example of Dosomethingism.

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