Court Affirms Governor’s Budget Power
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ALBANY – The state’s highest court is siding with Governor Pataki in his constitutional battle with the Legislature over budgetary powers, reaffirming the governor’s primacy in managing the state’s financial affairs.
Ruling on lawsuits dating from 1998 and 2001, the Court of Appeals voted 5-2 to uphold the governor’s power to change state law within his budget proposal and to forbid the Assembly and Senate from undoing his changes as they approve the budget.
The court acknowledged that the governor’s sweeping powers are “susceptible to abuse,” but said the disputed provisions of Mr. Pataki’s budgets did not exceed his constitutional prerogatives.
The ruling preserves for the time being the governor-dominated budgeting scheme added to the state constitution in 1927, which was meant to rein in financial mismanagement.
But the divided decision does not resolve the bitter dispute between Mr. Pataki and the Legislature. In fact, it is likely to fuel efforts in the Assembly and Senate to amend the constitution and give lawmakers more leverage in budget negotiations.
While Mr. Pataki greeted the ruling as “a positive for all New Yorkers,” legislative leaders of both parties vehemently deplored it. The governor’s fellow Republican, Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, called it “unacceptable” and warned that it would make the chronically delayed budget process even more dysfunctional.
“Today’s court ruling must be the impetus that forces a resolution to assure that budget reform happens one way or another,” Mr. Bruno said.
He said he would decide by today whether to summon his house back to the Capitol to act on legislation to overhaul the budget process. Mr. Bruno said the Senate could override the governor’s veto of a plan that both houses unanimously approved earlier this year, or act on a compromise bill that he and the Assembly have been negotiating with the governor.
The Democratic speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, said the court ruling turns the budget process into a “one-sided charade” that endangers funding for education, health care, and economic development, but did not say how his house would react.
Mr. Silver’s spokesman, Charles Carrier, said the speaker needs to consult the members of his Democratic conference before making such a statement.
The constitutional clauses at the heart of the dispute give the governor the sole authority to draft a budget for the state – which currently amounts to $103 billion a year – then restricts how the Legislature may amend his proposals. For each item of spending, lawmakers have the options of eliminating it entirely, reducing it, approving it as is, or approving a separate appropriation that adds more money. The governor can lineitem veto any additions.
In recent years, the governor has used appropriation bills to make increasingly sweeping changes in state law and policy – including, for example, entirely rewriting the formula for distributing education aid as part of his 2001 budget. In yesterday’s ruling, the high court said the Legislature can reduce or eliminate the spending in question, or simply refuse to approve the bill, but it cannot take out the changes in law with the governor’s acquiescence.
“It cannot adopt a budget that substitutes its spending proposals for the governor’s,” the court said. “If it could do so, executive budgeting would no longer exist.”
Three judges signed the majority opinion, which was written by Mr. Pataki’s most recent appointee, Judge Robert Smith. Two other judges signed a concurring opinion, saying the court should set limits on what changes the governor can include in his appropriations. The last two, including Chief Judge Judith Kaye, dissented, calling the majority view “a distortion of the constitutional scheme” that leaves the Legislature with too little power.
“If people want to know why there’s stalemate, this decision explains it to them,” Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, a Westchester Democrat, said yesterday. “The constitution does not permit the Legislature any other means of changing the governor’s budget. … The options for the Legislature are to rubber stamp or to shut down the government. That’s bizarre. It’s un-American.”
He said he intends to reintroduce a constitutional amendment that would, among other things, declare that the governor’s budget bills may not include language that “attempts to modify any general, special, or local law, or which attempts to create an exception to any such law.”
A budget analyst with the Manhattan Institute, E.J. McMahon, disputed the idea that the constitution unfairly restricts the Legislature. Once they approve the governor’s budget, with additions or deletions, they can still make additions or changes in the form of a “supplemental budget,” Mr. McMahon said.