Judge Tells Senators To Get Back Into Chamber
-
- June
- 29
A state Supreme Court judge ruled this afternoon that all 62 state senators must convene session together tomorrow, calling the separate sessions held by the warring sides “fiction” that violates state law.
The action by Justice Joseph Teresi is the first definitive steps by the courts to intervene in the three-week leadership fight that has paralyzed the Senate since June 8. He ordered all senators to the Senate chambers tomorrow at 10 a.m.
“To convene into session as separate groups is fiction,” he told lawyers for Senate Democrats and Republicans.
Lawyers for Senate Republicans said they will appeal and seek a stay that would prevent session from being held, arguing that the judicial branch doesn’t the legal right to interfere in legislative business.
Gov. David Paterson has been using his constitutional power since last Tuesday to order the Senate to hold special sessions each day in hopes of breaking the gridlock. But the 31-31 deadlocked Senate has simply entered the chamber separately each day and gaveled in and out without taking any action.
Teresi ruled that the constitution compels the Senate to be in the chambers together.
Paterson, however, doesn’t have the power to require them to take any action once they convene.
So the ruling may bring them all into the chamber, but they could all simply gavel in and out, Paterson’s attorneys conceded.
This entry was posted
on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 5:11 pm by Joseph Spector.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
