Senate Republican Leader Robert Ortt and Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay have written to State Office of General Services Commissioner RoAnn Destito, requesting a plan to safely reopen the State Capitol and surrounding areas to the public.

The State Capitol has been closed to visitors since last March and the Empire State Plaza has been covered with fences and other heavy barricades for months.

Ortt says as the infection rate goes down and the vaccination rate goes up, COVID-related restrictions in place at the Capitol and the Plaza have become clearly outdated and unnecessary in many cases.

"It is well past time for leaders in Albany to commit to safely reopening the seat of our state government for the sake of the people we were elected to represent. The pandemic and the scandals that cast a dark cloud over the State Capitol have also exposed many flaws in the functioning of our democratic process this past year. I believe any efforts to reopen the Capitol to visitors -- and make the surrounding area as welcoming to New Yorkers as possible -- would go a long way toward restoring transparency and accountability to a state government desperately in need of both,” said Ortt.

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READ ON: See the States Where People Live the Longest

Stacker used data from the 2020 County Health Rankings to rank every state's average life expectancy from lowest to highest. The 2020 County Health Rankings values were calculated using mortality counts from the 2016-2018 National Center for Health Statistics. The U.S. Census 2019 American Community Survey and America's Health Rankings Senior Report 2019 data were also used to provide demographics on the senior population of each state and the state's rank on senior health care, respectively.

Read on to learn the average life expectancy in each state.

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