No Lt Gov For You: Court Unanimously Rejects Ravitch Appointment

it means (0.00 / 0)

they're going to take it to the Court of Appeals for final determination.

NYS Government.  Awesome.  

Buffalopundit  blog at WNYMedia.net

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by: buffalopundit @ Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 20:26:42 PM UTC

It means... (4.00 / 1)

It means I was right all along (not to brag or anything) -- although the appellate court found a slightly different reasoning that I did.

Their reasoning, at first glance, deals with §43 of Public Officers Law (POL), under which Gov. Paterson and the goo-goos claimed he had the power to appoint Ravitch.  The court says, "The plain language of this statute that the vacancy ... is to be 'filled,' not by a gubernatorial appointment, but 'by an election.'"

Their point, I believe, is that §43 of POL is not designed to allow the governor to fill vacancies, but only to let the governor appoint someone to act until an election can be held.

Then the court turns to Art. IV §6 of the state constitution, under which the power to "perform the duties" of Lt. Gov. devolves on the Temporary President of the Senate, and therefore, the court ruled, the position is filled.

The court's point is that you can't have one person (the Temporary President of the Senate) "performing" the duties of Lt. Gov., and someone else (the Governor's appointee) "executing" the same duties.  They state, "In our view, therefore, Public Officers Law § 43 cannot be constitutionally applied with respect to a vacancy in the office of lieutenant-governor."

The court's decision is available here.

My take -- there are a number of assertions made by this court that could be overturned by the Court of Appeals.  In addition, Citizens Union (at least) filed a quite excellent amicus brief (available as a PDF on their website).  I still have faith that the appointment is unconstitutional, but the battle is far from over

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Thu Aug 20, 2009 at 20:37:35 PM UTC

so maybe it is time (0.00 / 0)

to put something in place that addresses this??

What a long, strange trip it's been.

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by: LuLu @ Sat Aug 22, 2009 at 12:57:56 PM UTC

The 25th Amendment (0.00 / 0)

At the federal level, there were over a dozen periods of time when the office of Vice President was empty before the 25th Amendment was passed in 1967.  In addition, the first Vice President to take over on the death of a President, John Tyler, insisted on taking the oath of office as President, instead of being merely an "acting President."

The original language in Art. II, §1, paragraph 6 is somewhat fuzzy -- do the "powers and duties of the office" of President "devolve" upon the Vice President, or does the actual "office" devolve on the VP?  Also, if both the President and VP are taken out, the original Constitution only says that Congress may "by Law ... declar[e] what Officer shall then act as President," (emphasis mine) as opposed to becoming President.

The 25th Amendment was clearly called for, yet wasn't enacted until over 125 years after Tyler took office in 1841.  Here's hoping New York can beat that record -- but I'm not betting on it.

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by: Dan Jacoby @ Sat Aug 22, 2009 at 15:43:35 PM UTC

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