Governors, Mayors, and Mandates

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Governors, Mayors, and Mandates: Public Access Mask Mandates – Critical Public Health Issue at hand

New York City Mayor, Bill De Blasio now says, if I want to go into a restaurant or do almost anything indoors starting in a couple of weeks, I have to prove my vaccination status.  Although it may be first impacting NYC, other mayors around the country could follow suit. Many are questioning whether this is legal or not so I thought we’d shine some light on the matter.

Governors of other states have passed laws doing the reverse saying you can’t require private businesses. And then these two require back nation. So I don’t know, it can be the city required, vaccination, private businesses. Yeah, it’s conservative. I think everybody wants to, uh, advocate their own position. But I guess the answer is going to be up to the courts to decide because it really comes down to a critical public health issue that may override the general right of a business or individual to make those decisions themselves.

State and Government Employees

State and government employees more and more are being told in the coming weeks, they’re going to need to be vaccinated or be subjected to routine testing here in New York. The plans aren’t finalized because Governor Cuomo says he wants to work with union leaders, but already some of the key unions are saying that they don’t want mandatory vaccinations even though they might support their members getting vaccinated. They don’t want their members to be required. It seems as though whether we’re looking at things imposed in Albany or New York city or Washington, there are likely are going to be a lot of court cases coming up.

It’s a matter of what’s in the best interest of public health. I’m very concerned that there’s still a very high percentage of health care workers and nursing home workers that aren’t vaccinated. I find it appalling given the situation we’ve had at nursing homes. That just doesn’t add up. There are many laws. We have laws about how you can drive your car, about where you can smoke. We have many, many laws about regulating your behavior. So I find the dispute about this issue somewhat puzzling.

What’s Next For Governor Cuomo?

Everybody, whether it’s in New York or around the country, even around the world, everybody seems to be offering their opinions about the troubles that Governor Cuomo faces with the recent breaking news of NYS Attorney General confirming their investigation regarding sexual harassment against the Governor. A lot of people now urging him to quit. From a legal standpoint, the governor already has a very strong legal team in place. It appears he has no intention of going anywhere. I’ve been asked the question if I was a part of the governor’s legal team, what would I be advising him to do?

Two Views

There are two views here. That raise even more questions. There’s the illegal, criminal problem; whether he can get charged or prosecuted, and then there’s the political. Are the votes there from both the Assembly and the Senate to impeach and then convict him? Should he resign before that happens? And then the other issue is how does he defend himself from getting charged with various criminal violations? Violations which may follow if he gets impeached, but may not follow if he resigns. Many considerations and highly complex series of decisions will need to be implemented in the coming days. It should be interesting to see it all unfold.

 

Stanley Law has offices in Syracuse, Binghamton, Rochester, Watertown, Oneonta, and Montrose, PA. If you have questions or concerns please feel free to reach out to us at anytime at 1-800-608-3333 or email Joe directly at Joe@StanleyLawOffices.com. 

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