You can probably guess the governor, the state, and the state of affairs.

Legislators from New York’s Assembly and state Senate struck a deal Tuesday to strip Gov. Andrew Cuomo of his pandemic-linked emergency powers and return matters like lockdowns to local control.

The deal would reverse emergency powers granted to Cuomo exactly a year ago, in the early days of the COVID pandemic, that gave him free rein to order measures like quarantines.

The Democrats are claiming that this has nothing to do with the scandals and investigations, not to mention the calls for Cuomo to resign, but the timing would raise certain obvious questions about the credibility of these assertions.

“A year into the pandemic, and as New Yorkers receive the vaccine, the temporary emergency powers have served their purpose – it is time for them to be repealed,” Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie said. “These temporary emergency powers were granted as New York was devastated by a virus we knew nothing about. Now it is time for our government to return to regular order.”

Nothing about? It’s good of Carl to broadcast his admission of incompetence. Democrat legislators knew as little or as much about the virus as Cuomo did. Considering Cuomo’s track record of incompetence, abusive behavior, and attempts to blame the virus on a minority religious group, it’s hard to believe that even the most inept Albany legislator knew less than he did. 

The truth is that Democrat legislators in New York, and around the country, were eager to hand emergency powers to governors because…

1. They wanted the benefits of one of their own wielding seemingly unlimited power

2. They didn’t want any responsibility for the management or mismanagement of the pandemic

Cuomo’s scandals make him the perfect fall guy. The assassination is done. Now it’s time to put paid to the assassin and then everything can be blamed on Cuomo. 

Eventually.

Meanwhile, this is what it took for Democrat legislators to at least partially claw back emergency powers.