Paterson's Appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lt. Governor is Upheld By Court of Appeals

The New York Times is reporting that the State Court of Appeals (the highest court in NYS) has overturned a lower courts ruling and upheld Paterson's appointment of Richard Ravitch as Lt. Governor.  The appointment, made during the last days of the Senate stalemate as a means to end it, has been in legal limbo since almost immediately after the announcement State Senator Dean Skelos filed suit to block the appointment.

Paterson's original intent when making the appointment was to fill the position, which has a tie breaking vote in the Senate, thus ending the stalemate as Ravitch would vote with the Democrats.  The plan worked, for even though Ravitch has not been allowed to take office until now, the stalemate ended as both sides saw that Paterson had found a way to have actual influence over their childish bickering.  The New York constitution allows for the President of the Senate to pick a new Lt. Governor and have them confirmed, but in this case there was no President of the Senate.  Thus Paterson made the appointment without knowing if what he was doing was constitutional or not, but drastic times call for drastic measures.  

The timing of the court's decision could also not come at a better time for Paterson, as at the time he made the decision without the blessing of Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.  Many saw this as a way in which Paterson was differentiating himself from Cuomo as the two will almost certainly find themselves in a heated primary contest.  With news recently breaking that Democratic part leadership, including Obama, has been asking Paterson to step down in order for Cuomo to take over as the parties candidate, this is a victory for Paterson.  Although I still don't think that this will help his terrible poll numbers, for if people didn't feel that he had a hand in helping to end the stalemate at the time through this move, they are not going to change their minds just because it has been ruled constitutional.

So now the State has a new Lt. Governor, but what does this decision mean for the State?  Well, for starters, the Governor now has the ability to appoint someone to serve in vacant high level State positions without the consent of anyone.  Thus, If Ravitch dies, Paterson can immediately appoint anyone of his choosing to the post of Lt. governor, without the consent of the Legislature or the people.  Similarly, if Paterson dies, the State would then have a governor who at no time was elected by the people, or confirmed by a body representing the people.  This seems like a dangerous precedent to set, but the Court of Appeals only judges the law as it is written, not as it should be.

This leads us to what should happen in light of this incident.  The law should be changed.  There should be a new clear cut amendment made to the State Constitution specifically laying out the procedure for filling vacancies in high level state positions.  In my opinion this should be a very non-partisan issue, for we now have found out that there is a loophole in our Constitution, thus lets fix it.  Unfortunately, in today's incredibly partisan atmosphere, this suggestion would most likely turn into a circus, with both sides attempting to make all sorts of changes to the document to somehow gain an advantage or say that they left their mark on New York.

So for the meantime we have a Lt. Governor and know that the Governor has the ability to appoint someone to vacancies in high level state positions.  Lets just hope that this will help the state to get through these tough times and into a position where the law can calmly be changed.