ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo scored a dramatic expansion of his emergency powers that left even top Democrats wary thanks to provisions tucked inside of a hastily drafted $40 million spending bill to fight the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The legislation expanded Cuomo’s powers to declare an emergency and even suspend laws state or local laws in their entirety, with little oversight from lawmakers.

“What it does do is give the governor very extensive, and almost unlimited, affirmative legislative power to not only waive existing laws and provisions of existing laws,” said longtime Assemblyman Richard Gottfried (D-Manhattan), “but it also empowers him to essentially issue new legislation.”

“I’ve never seen any governor or health commissioner ask for this kind of expansion of power,” added the Assembly health committee chairman, who was first elected 1970.

Gottfried’s counterpart in the upper chamber, state Sen. Gustavo Rivera (D-The Bronx), also voted no.

“I cannot vote in good conscience to give the governor what are in essence, dictatorial powers when he and the health commissioner already have sufficient power to deal with coronavirus,” said Assemblyman Phil Steck (D-Schenectady), ahead of his nay vote Monday night.

However, those concerns did not stop the Assembly and state Senate from overwhelmingly passing the legislation, which sets an April 2021 expiration date for Cuomo’s new authority.

Previously, Cuomo’s emergency powers only allowed him to suspend portions of laws if it would “hinder or delay” disaster response.

But the three-term executive downplayed the expansion of his powers when pressed on the issue by reporters Tuesday as he signed the legislation into law.

“You recognize the law is deficient, you recognize just suspension of a law doesn’t give you the ability to do anything affirmative,” Cuomo said rhetorically. “Fix it for this situation, but don’t fix it for the other situations?”

“These are uncharted territories. Government has to respond, government has to respond quickly,” Cuomo told reporters early Tuesday in Albany after signing the legislation in law.