New Yorkers are leaving their state in droves, and Florida is their main destination. Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul just gave them one more reason to flee.
According to the Florida Standard on Thursday, Hochul is still stuck in pandemic mode, even as most of the country, including President Joe Biden, has moved on.
To that end, she is fighting for the power to lock people up for dissenting against COVID-19 lockdown rules.
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The Florida Standard reported that Hochul seeks to reinstate an administrative rule “that could lock people up in quarantine camps indefinitely and without due process.”
A state judge rejected the government’s claim last year, noting that as written the rule allowed Hochul to lock people up in camps and provide a detainee due process “at a time when he or she is already detained, possibly isolated from home and family, and in a situation where it might be difficult to obtain legal counsel in a timely manner.”
In his ruling, according to Law.com, Judge Ronald Ploetz of Cattaraugus County noted that “involuntary detention is a severe deprivation of individual liberty, far more egregious than other health and safety measures.” Hochul’s rule merely paid “lip service to constitutional due process,” the judge said.
The court voided the rule because its promise of due process came “after the fact.”
Left-wing New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, filed an appeal in March.
Three Republican lawmakers have challenged the appeal. In response, James claimed that the rulemaking process belonged to the Health Department and that lawmakers could not interfere.
A hearing has been scheduled for Sept. 13.
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The Florida Standard reported that New York lawyer Bobbie Anne Cox, who successfully argued against the rule last year, told a podcaster on Wednesday that it was “unbelievable tyranny” that Hochul was fighting the judge’s ruling.
“The fact that the attorney general is using people’s hard-earned tax dollars to bring this appeal is sinful,” she said during the podcast. “In New York, we have one-party rule on steroids. We have to end this absolute power, that’s the bottom line.”
Such policies are driving people out of New York.
USA Today reported earlier this year that in 2022, 65,000 New Yorkers traded their driver’s license for a Florida one, a new record.
The New York Post reported in April that 27% of New Yorkers plan to leave within the next five years, and 30% say they wish they lived somewhere else.
Just this week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams declared war on coal- and wood-fired pizza ovens in the name of climate change.
In response, Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds of Naples offered some advice.
“New York: Where taxes are high, crime is out of control, and pizza ovens threaten society more than getting stabbed on the subway,” he tweeted.
“Again, New York is giving its residents another reason to leave for Florida. Come on down, but leave your politics at the state line.”
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