Gov. Andrew Cuomo hasn’t granted himself or any of his aides a pardon or reprieve in the week since his resignation.

State Sen. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick, D-New City, wants to make sure future governors aren’t given the opportunity. Reichlin-Melnick has introduced S.7329, a concurrent resolution of the state Senate and Assembly to amend the state Constitution prohibiting the governor from granting himself or any person involved with furthering the illegal conduct of the governor a reprieve, commutation of their sentence or pardon.

To become law, Reichlin-Melnick’s bill must be adopted by both houses of the legislature in two successive sessions and then approved by state residents in a ballot referendum.

The New City senator said the state Constitution gives the governor the power to grant reprieves, commutations and pardons after conviction for all offenses except treason and cases of impeachment and that state courts \have held the governor’s power to grant pardons, reprieves, and commutations is unlimited and cannot be limited by statute or court decision. That means a sitting governor has the authority to pardon people who may have furthered the governor’s own unlawful activity.

“Additionally, while the public officers law provides that any office holder convicted of a felony automatically vacates their office, a Governor can be convicted of various misdemeanors and remain in office. Thus, a sitting Governor convicted of misdemeanor offenses such as sexual misconduct, forcible touching, or certain types of sexual abuse will remain in office and could even pardon themselves.”

No U.S. president has ever pardoned themselves, though Presidents Richard Nixon and Donald Trump openly discussed the idea. A legal memo written in 1974 by the federal Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel days before Nixon resigned argued a president could not self-pardon under the logic that no one can judge their own case. Despite the memo, it is unclear among legal scholars if a presidential self-pardon wouuld be constitutional.

To settle the question, the bipartisan National Task Force on Rule of Law & Democracy has called for Congress to pass a resolution expressly and categorically condemning self-pardons, according to the Brennan Center.

In October 2019, the New York state Legislature enacted legislation that allows state prosecutions even if a person has received a presidential pardon for federal crimes that could be the basis of state or local crimes — but had not contemplated such a situation for a sitting governor.

The bill closes New York’s “double jeopardy” legal loophole that protected individuals who are pardoned by a president for federal crimes from being prosecuted at the state level for the same offense. The 2019 law applied to future and past offenses, provided a plea has not been entered and a person has not already been tried.

“No one is above the law and New York will not turn a blind eye to criminality, no matter who seeks to protect them,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release when he signed the law in October 2019. “The closure of this egregious loophole gives prosecutors the ability to stand up against any abuse of power, and helps ensure that no politically motivated, self-serving action is sanctioned under law.”