Senator Joe Pennacchio blasted Governor Phil Murphy’s continued inaction on a promised “postmortem” investigation of his administration’s failed COVID-19 response in nursing homes and State-run veterans homes and stonewalling by Democrats of a legislative investigation.

Sen. Joe Pennacchio voted remotely from outside the Paramus Veterans Memorial Home during a Senate session on December 9, 2021 to highlight inaction on a proposed investigation into Murphy administration pandemic failures that resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths in nursing homes and State-run veterans homes. (SenateNJ.com)

“Governor Murphy should be honest with people that he has absolutely no intention of doing a ‘postmortem’ of his administration’s pandemic failures,” said Pennacchio (R-26). “It’s clear the administration doesn’t want to be held accountable for their many mistakes even if will help save lives in the future. The state may never be ‘out of the woods’ when it comes to having some number of hospitalizations, which the governor is using as an excuse, because COVID-19 is now endemic, and he knows that. Any person of reason can see if he hasn’t done a review after two years, it ain’t gonna happen.”

Since the administration cannot be trusted to do an honest review of their own failures, Pennacchio has repeatedly called for a legislative investigation with subpoena power since May of 2020 to learn what went wrong and guide the development of better policies, procedures, and oversight mechanisms for future crises.

Democrats have blocked multiple efforts by Pennacchio and Republicans to bring the proposed investigations up for votes by the full Senate.

“It’s sickening that the Democrats who control the Legislature are unwilling to learn from the unnecessary deaths of 10,000 nursing home and veterans home residents because it might be embarrassing to the administration,” added Pennacchio. “They’ve stonewalled an investigation that could help us to save lives in future crises. It’s shameful.”