Rod Watson: Executive orders leave New York in perpetual state of ‘emergency’

Apparently, Gov. Kathy Hochul’s controversial law targeting law-abiding pistol-permit holders has not done much to curb gun violence.

But don’t take my word for it. Take hers.

Over the weekend, the governor extended for the umpteenth time the “Declaration of Disaster Emergency” first enacted by predecessor Andrew Cuomo in July 2021. Citing rising gun violence during the pandemic, Cuomo used the declaration to seize supposedly temporary powers to combat what he called “a statewide disaster emergency.”

But while Covid-19 has subsided since then, the gun violence emergency apparently has not. That’s despite the misnamed Concealed Carry Improvement Act that Hochul pushed through two years ago, which was sold as an anti-crime measure but which will restrict where only law-abiding gun owners carry weapons, not criminals.

Hence the latest extension of the emergency declaration, which now runs through Feb. 4. In fact, the gun violence emergency order has been repeatedly extended, including 27 times by Hochul alone, according to the watchdog group Reinvent Albany. If the CCIA was effective, you’d think the gun crime emergency would be over by now.

But the truth is that this is about much more than a counterproductive gun law. Such emergency powers let a governor bypass accountability measures – such as competitive bidding when issuing contracts or a review of contracts by the state comptroller – designed to protect the public and prevent abuse. In essence, they undermine the safeguards that make the democratic process work.

In that sense, the repeated extension of the gun-violence emergency declaration exemplifies all of Albany’s worst proclivities rolled into one: a political power-grab that sidesteps checks and balances while also keeping the public in the dark.

That’s a trifecta that is hard to achieve; but New York politicians are nothing if not industrious.

The gun violence disaster declaration – like most such…