Court of Appeals upholds legality of legislative pay raises
ALBANY — New York’s top court upheld the legality and authority of a legislative pay-raise commission in a 4-2 decision issued Thursday.
The Court of Appeals said the State Legislature and then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo didn’t violate the state constitution when they created the “Committee on Legislative and Executive Compensation” in 2018 to determine lawmakers’ salaries.
The committee eventually raised legislators’ pay from $79,500 annually to $130,000 while also giving raises to the governor and other statewide elected officials.
It was widely seen as a way around the politically thorny problem of having lawmakers’ vote on their own salaries, which had been frozen since 1999 in part because of public pressure.
A conservative watchdog group filed a lawsuit to derail the committee, contending the state constitution authorizes the State Legislature alone — not an outside commission — to adjust legislators’ pay.
The case moved through the court system for several years before finally reaching the Court of Appeals, where a majority of justices said the creation of the commission was legal.
In doing so, it rejected critics' core argument that Cuomo and legislators illegally delegated their authority.
“The Constitution expressly permits the Legislature to assign new powers and functions to such commissions, if constitutional,” acting Chief Judge Anthony Cannataro wrote for the majority. “We now hold that an assignment is valid … where the Legislature creates a temporary commission with a discrete purpose, and has not delegated the power to make the law or divested the executive branch of supervision, but set standards on the exercise of authority through appropriate guidance sufficient to prevent the commission from intruding on the Legislature’s lawmaking function.”
Two dissenting judges on the court, including former Nassau County prosecutor Madeline Singas, agreed with critics of the commission.
Singas wrote the panel clearly was created to allow legislators to sidestep the law. She criticized the judges in the majority for citing commission and processes for setting pay for state judges and Congress as a justification for siding with legislators.
“The law at issue represents the legislature’s attempt to unburden itself of its unique constitutional power to pass and repeal laws and instead vest that power in a group of unelected individuals, thereby avoiding the important safeguards of the constitutionally mandated lawmaking process,” Singas wrote for the minority. “It additionally violates specific constitutional restrictions on how legislative and executive officer pay must be set. Despite the plurality’s efforts to create one, there is no exception in the State Constitution for pay raises.”
The pay-raise commission also had recommended limiting lawmakers’ outside incomes to 15% above their public salary. But lower courts had ruled that recommendation beyond the scope of the panel’s authority and removed the limits.
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