Captiol News from The Assembly Minority Conference
CAPITOL NEWS from
The Assembly Minority Conference

Statement from Assembly Minority Leader Will Barclay and Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt

“Yesterday, the governor’s announcement of New York officially reaching a 70 percent partial vaccination rate and the lifting of most COVID restrictions to reopen the state was welcome news for New Yorkers. However, he failed to address the most important constituency, our children.

The governor still has his unilateral power, but failed to lift mask mandates for school children. The Assembly and Senate Minority Conferences have repeatedly called on the governor to loosen the mask restrictions in our schools, particularly in light of recent high summer temperatures. Parents throughout New York state have asked for this decision to be left to local school districts, but these requests have fallen on deaf ears in Albany.

We have two options: the governor can heed the concerns of parents and school officials and leave this decision to local school districts and health officials, or the state Legislature should immediately reconvene to repeal these unnecessary restrictions on school children.

Gov. Cuomo and Albany Majority members may be content to ignore pleas from children, parents and school districts; the Assembly and Senate Minority members are not. We need action to unmask our children now.”