Paterson shutdown threat aims to bust budget stalemate

ALBANY - Gov. David A. Paterson may have broken the state budget stalemate by taking the unprecedented step of forcing lawmakers to choose between approving spending cuts or shutting down government, experts said.

For more than 20 years, budgets routinely have been enacted after the April 1 deadline as governors and legislative leaders argued over spending cuts and ways to raise revenue. This year, Paterson appears to have an edge over the leaders.

Monday, as it did a week ago, the legislature will vote on millions of dollars in reductions included in the emergency spending bills needed to keep Albany running because the budget is 75 days late. If they fail, New York government would close for the first time in modern history.

Lawmakers have derided the strategy as "gubernatorial blackmail."

But fiscal watchdogs and constitutional experts called Paterson's tactics "novel." Such marshaling of power, they said, could end New York's record of late budgets.

"This governor is pushing the envelope and it seems to be working," said Robert B. Ward of SUNY's Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany. "If the governor can impose his will on the legislature, we just might have on-time budgets in the future."

Paterson's unorthodox moves

Ward and others called Paterson's use of emergency bills to jump-start budget talks the latest example of his unorthodox approach to governing.

Last July, Paterson appointed a lieutenant governor to preside over the Senate, helping end a 4 1/2-week stalemate caused by a leadership coup. Senate Republicans charged Paterson with violating the state constitution but the Court of Appeals backed him.

Not all of Paterson's gambits have succeeded.

Last month, a federal judge blocked the furloughing of 100,000 unionized state workers. The ruling undercut attempts to win $250 million in concessions from unions to help close the $9.2-billion budget deficit.

However, "the fact that legislators approved the furlough plan [in emergency bills] rather than risk a government shutdown," Ward said, "showed the governor that other aspects of the budget could be adopted using this unusual method."

About 40 percent of the $136-billion budget has been ratified so far, including $57 billion in health care spending, which is 1 percent less than last year. As an incentive to complete the budget, Paterson has vowed to insert cuts to schools and colleges in the bills to be voted on June 21.

Paterson, who is not running for election, downplayed his use of emergency bills. "I waited seven weeks before I exercised [the mechanism] to give the legislature every chance to come to an agreement," he said. "But there was no action . . . I'm not going beyond my executive authority."

Veteran observers of the Capitol were amazed that none of Paterson's predecessors had done what he's done. Emergency bills were established in the early 1980s to tackle a fiscal crisis under Gov. Hugh Carey.

While calling Paterson imaginative, E.J. McMahon, of the conservative Empire Center for New York State Policy, warned that the governor's dire predictions about a government shutdown and his calling senators "rogues" could spark a legislative revolt.

Court decision opened door

Paterson's action is rooted in a 2004 decision by the Court of Appeals involving then-Gov. George Pataki and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan). The court ruled lawmakers can only modify amounts of money appropriated in the governor's budget proposals, not change language that dictates how money will be spent.

"What Paterson is doing is an extension of that decision - which altered the balance of power between the executive and legislative branches," said Bennett Liebman, an Albany Law School professor.

Leaders of the legislature's Democratic majorities denied feeling pressured. Silver said Paterson hadn't set a precedent because spending reductions in the emergency bills were agreed to by all parties in secret talks.

Senate Minority Leader Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre) denounced "as plain wrong" the piecemeal adoption of budget components.

Still, experts predicted the next governor will revisit Paterson's expansive use of power. "What he's doing is a very significant evolution in how the office of governor is used," Ward said. "Future governors . . . will be studying the constitution carefully, as Paterson has, looking for opportunities that have not been recognized before."

On-time record
The state budget is supposed to be in place by the April 1 start of the fiscal year. That deadline has been met only twice in the past 25 years. Here’s the record:

Gov. David A. Paterson
2010-11 — 75 days late (as of June 14)
2009-10 — 3
2008-09 — 9

Gov. Eliot Spitzer
2007-08 — 11 hours late

Gov. George Pataki
2006-07 — on time
2005-06 — on time
2004-05 — 133 days late
2003-04 — 45
2002-03 — 46
2001-02 — 125
2000-01 — 35
1999-00 — 126
1998-99 — 14
1997-98 — 126
1996-97 — 104
1995-96 — 68

Gov. Mario Cuomo
1994-95 — 69 days late
1993-94 — 5
1992-93 — 2
1991-92 — 65
1990-01 — 49
1989-90 — 19
1988-89 — 20
1987-88 — 11
1986-87 — 5

— Compiled by James T. Madore