Since taking office, Gov. Kathy Hochul has insisted a full review of the state’s COVID-19 pandemic response is forthcoming. Yet, as the weeks and months linger on, no such report has been released nor has the administration even hired any consultants or even begun taking contract bids to get to the bottom of what happened. It appears that while the families of those who died continue to desperately seek clarity and answers, the governor is in no rush to provide them.

  Sadly, it is not surprising the governor is dragging her feet on the matter. The timeline of events leading up to today — including the previous administration’s disastrous policy to admit COVID-positive individuals into nursing homes and long-term care facilities, subsequent cover up of the true number of elderly New Yorkers who died, the earthshattering investigation from New York Attorney General Letitia James, and now obvious stalling on a full report — is clear evidence the governor is afraid of what that report may reveal. Too bad for her, though, hiding from the facts does not make them any less true.

The Assembly Minority Conference long suspected the state’s pandemic response was ineffective, and as such has pushed back hard against any attempts to shield the public from what really happened. My colleagues and I have written letters, requested hearings, asked that those most closely involved be subpoenaed, demanded answers, and supported every effort by those impacted to press their representatives and the governor’s office to investigate the matter thoroughly and honestly. This information is critical to ensuring nothing like this ever happens again.

  Misleading and dodging the families and loved ones of those impacted is unto itself completely unacceptable. But just as inappropriate is a willful delay or deliberate withholding of critical information that could be applied to future public-health emergency responses. This information is lifesaving, and obscuring it for political convenience is well beyond the pale. Simply stated, we need answers. We have needed them for months, and Gov. Hochul’s time is up — no more stalling. 

I have spoken to individuals across New York state who have experienced the worst of the pandemic response and they all want the same thing: closure. They are not going to forget what happened, and any political strategy centered on waiting out the public outrage is not going to work. As the state’s chief executive, Gov. Hochul has a moral responsibility to get to the bottom of what happened, and each passing day she does not is a travesty that disrespects the tens of thousands of victims and those who mean to prevent another tragedy.

I am, again, calling on her to fully investigate the state’s pandemic response, fix prior mistakes, and help our state finally heal.        

William (Will) A. Barclay, 53, Republican, is the New York Assembly minority leader and represents the 120th New York Assembly District, which encompasses most of Oswego County, including the cities of Oswego and Fulton, as well as the town of Lysander in Onondaga County and town of Ellisburg in Jefferson County. 

Many years ago, I was in the audience when the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the civil-rights activist and election mobilizer, gave a speech. He often used the catchphrase, “Keep hope alive!” when he spoke, and he did so that time. The audience picked it up as a chant, shouting out in unison: “Keep hope alive!” It was a memorable bit of political showmanship.

A few years later, I gave a speech at a small college in Iowa. I used it to analyze all the challenges our country faced, domestic and foreign, and finished thinking I’d done a pretty good job of laying out our problems. Afterward, a young student came up to me. “That was a marvelous speech, Congressman,” she said. “I’ve just got one question: Is there any hope?” 

I realized then that, far from rising to the occasion, I had failed. Jesse Jackson was right: You always have to leave your listeners with hope, and I had not done that. 

This is hard to pull off, of course — possibly harder now than it was then. We face a long list of seemingly intractable problems, from climate change to mass shootings to threats to our democratic processes to overseas rivals willing to test us at every turn. It’s easy to get discouraged and to believe that we cannot solve or manage those problems — and then to give in to despair. But Jackson and that student were right. We constantly need reminding that we can change things for the better. 

The reason, actually, is straightforward. The backbone of our system of representative democracy is its faith in ordinary Americans to step up to their responsibility as citizens to improve their corner of the world — by their own direct actions as well as by making discriminating judgments about politicians and policies. If you rob people of hope, then you rob them of a reason to be involved. 

In decades of talking to people all over the country, I have been repeatedly impressed by the strength of citizens’ desire to improve their communities. This often reflected itself in specific projects — a bridge, road, or renovations to a local school — but it also applied to supporting quality leaders who could get things done for their communities. 

To be sure, people were often wary of politics: they thought it was filled with messiness and noise. But at the end of the day, they saw the need for deal-making, compromise, and negotiation. I think this is still true for the majority of Americans, though an alarming number these days want to elect political leaders who will brook no compromise — and, indeed, seem to take an almost punitive approach to fellow citizens and politicians who disagree with them. They want to extinguish hope. 

Still, I believe that most Americans are solidly pragmatic. They recognize the complexities of the challenges we face, see the limitations on what can be accomplished at any given moment, and believe that even in the face of division there is much that unites us, especially the urge to improve our own lives and those of our neighbors and fellow community members. They’re very aware of differences of opinion and operate out of a basic sense of decency and fairness. They want the process to reflect fairly where people stand. I think that, without articulating it, they understand instinctively that keeping the process fair is crucial to keeping hope alive. 

I have worked in this system a long time, and I believe it can do just that — if it’s allowed to work, and if citizens are allowed to fulfill the basic responsibility of being involved. That’s why the hope of changing things for the better is so crucial. We may face serious, difficult problems, but if we allow ourselves to become discouraged — or even worse, to be discouraged from tackling them — then progress really will be impossible.      

Lee Hamilton, 91, is a senior advisor for the Indiana University (IU) Center on Representative Government, distinguished scholar at IU Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, and professor of practice at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Hamilton, a Democrat, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for 34 years (1965-1999), representing a district in south-central Indiana.