Second opinion
Second judge rules against restrictions on outside earnings
Judge rules that state lawmakers don’t have to follow committee’s restrictions on outside income.
A second judge has ruled that state lawmakers don’t have to follow restrictions on outside income that were recommended by a special compensation committee.
The same committee awarded the lawmakers pay raises — which they’ll get to keep, according to the ruling.
State Supreme Court Justice Richard Platkin ruled Thursday that the committee exceeded its authority by imposing limitations on the private income earned by state legislators. The limits were set to take effect in 2020 and would have drastically curtailed outside employment options for members of the Senate and Assembly.
The anti-corruption measure was implemented in December by a committee, created by the Legislature and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, in exchange for a $50,500 increase in annual base pay for lawmakers that began rolling out this year. The restrictions banned nearly all jobs with a fiduciary responsibility and limited outside earnings to 15 percent of their legislative salaries.
Platkin found that only the raises recommended for lawmakers by the committee carry the force of law, a narrower result that legislative leaders had said was their intention.
“All of the committee’s other recommendations are just that — recommendations advanced for the consideration of policymakers, but not the law of the state of New York,” Platkin wrote.
He acknowledged that it could make sense to look at compensation holistically, but stressed that the committee didn’t have that type of power. “These policy matters remain reserved for the Legislature and the governor,” Platkin wrote.
In response to the ruling, the good government group Common Cause New York tweeted that a “raise without a ban on outside income is unacceptable.”
“Lawmakers deserve a raise, and New Yorkers deserve elected officials who work only for them,” Common Cause NY wrote.
The legal challenge was brought by 11 Republican legislators, most of whom would have been required to give up their outside jobs or resign their seats if the restriction remained. Their case did not address the raises.
An earlier case, which was filed on behalf of three state residents and a Republican Assembly member, also struck down the employment restrictions; an appeal, sought by the plaintiffs as well as the defending state attorney general’s office, is being considered by the Appellate Division of state Supreme Court’s Third Department.
The plaintiffs in that case maintained that the very creation of the committee was invalid.
The judge in that dispute also blocked $10,000 raises for legislators in 2020 and 2021. She left in place the $30,500 bump that took effect in January, the first legislative salary increase in two decades.
The attorney general’s office had requested the second case be delayed until the appeal in the earlier challenge could be heard.
Platkin denied that request, writing that members of the Legislature have a “paramount interest” in being heard on any challenges to the employment restrictions.
Dennis Vacco, an attorney for the GOP plaintiffs, anticipates the state will appeal Thursday’s ruling and it will be held in the same appeals court as the earlier case.
“I think these two cases, more likely than not, will be heard together,” Vacco said.
He has argued that the Republican lawmakers deserve to be heard because they have different objections to the compensation committee’s work than the plaintiffs in the earlier case.
A handful of Democratic Assemblymen, including John Mcdonald and Phil Steck, have also challenged the income restrictions in an ongoing federal lawsuit.
The attorney general’s office said Thursday that they were reviewing Platkin’s decision.