A legal challenge to a pay raise for New York’s governor and lieutenant governor, which was approved by the legislature in the dead of night, is going to court over concerns that it violated the state’s constitution by taking effect during their elected term. 

In the early hours of an April morning in 2019, lawmakers at Albany adopted a resolution to raise the salary of the governor and lieutenant governor. The state Senate approved the measure after 1 a.m., and the Assembly approved it a few hours later. The legislature also made the increase retroactive to January 1 of that year, the beginning of Mr. Cuomo and Ms. Hochul’s terms.

Critics of the move argued it violates the state constitution’s prohibition on pay raises that take effect during the governor’s elective term.

The fiscally conservative watchdog group, the Government Justice Center and the Empire Center are challenging the pay raises. The executive director of the GJC, Cameron McDonald, told the Capitol Press Room in December 2019 that the case centers on the issue of the timing of the increase, not the raise itself. 

“The prohibition on increasing or decreasing the governor’s salary during an elected term became part of the state Constitution in 1821 when the people of New York amended the Constitution to provide the Governor with veto power over legislation,” the GJC said in a statement about its lawsuit. “The Legislature defied the Constitution by changing that salary amount during the Governor’s elected term. It further highlighted the wisdom of New York’s founders when it made subsequent raises contingent on the state budget being passed ‘on time’ in 2020 and 2021.”

The watchdog group quoted Alexander Hamilton from 73 Federalist, in which he warned that if the legislature has “discretionary power” over an executive’s salary, it could “render him as obsequious to their will as they might think proper to make him.”

Oral arguments in the case at the Third Department Appellate Division are scheduled for March 24.

The 2019 pay raise was supposed to increase Mr. Cuomo’s pay to $200,000 in 2019 from $179,000. A further increase was supposed to raise his salary to $250,000 by 2021. As lieutenant governor, Ms. Hochul was slated to see her pay increase to $190,000 in 2019 and to $220,000 in 2021.

Mr. Cuomo defended his pay raise in April 2019, telling WNYC radio, “The salary adjustments were done last December by the pay commission, which publicized and put out a report, which was accepted by the legislature.”

“That was published and discussed in December, so there’s nothing new on that,” he said. 

However, in November 2020, he said he would not take a pay raise in 2021 due to the billions of dollars in tax revenue lost during the Covid pandemic. After resigning as governor amid allegations of sexual harassment, which he denied, Mr. Cuomo is running for mayor of New York City. 

While he said he would forgo the raise, Ms. Hochul reported in her 2023 tax returns that she made just shy of $250,000 during her second full year in office. 

The increase for the governor and lieutenant governor was recommended by an appointed compensation commission, which also recommended raising state lawmakers’ salaries while implementing a limit on the amount of money they can make outside their government jobs. 

In 2022, the legislature passed a law increasing their salary to $142,000, the highest in the country, and limiting outside income to $35,000. That law was upheld earlier this month by a state Supreme Court judge, sparking an outcry from Republican lawmakers who said they would be forced to resign or give up their outside jobs.