Mayor Need Not
Enforce Certain Laws,
Court Rules
By WINNIE HU, NYTimes
on the Web, February 15, 2006
In a victory for the Bloomberg
administration, the state's highest court narrowly ruled yesterday that the
mayor does not have to enforce city laws that he deems to be illegal.
The ruling gives Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg a powerful weapon in that he does
not have to enforce laws that the City Council passes through mayoral overrides,
as it has often done in recent years.
In a 4-to-3 ruling, the State Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling
that the mayor had the authority to refuse to enforce a 2004 law on domestic
partner benefits that he said violated state and federal laws.
The City Council had pushed through the so-called equal benefits law over the
mayor's veto. The law was sponsored by Christine C. Quinn, who is now the
City Council speaker, and would have required the city's larger contractors to
provide health and other benefits to domestic partners.
In siding with the mayor, the majority seemed to give legal standing for the
first time to what has been a common, if disputed, practice in the Bloomberg
administration, as well as previous mayoralties. In that sense, the ruling
was the latest skirmish in a 15-year struggle between mayors and the City
Council over just how much power the 1989 City Charter revisions gave to each
side.
During his first term, Mr. Bloomberg repeatedly charged that the Council was
overreaching its authority and passing laws that violated state and federal
laws. Indeed, relations grew so tense that the Council overrode mayoral
vetoes a record 35 times, according to city records.
Council members, in turn, complained that the mayor did not treat them as equals
in city government, and that he refused to enforce laws they had passed over his
objections.
In yesterday's ruling, the judges wrote that while the mayor was duty bound to
carry out "valid legislation" passed by the Council, he also had to comply with
state and federal laws. "Where a local law seems to the mayor to conflict
with a state or federal one, the mayor's obligation is to obey the latter, as
the mayor has done here," the ruling stated.
But in a dissenting opinion, the court's chief judge, Judith S. Kaye, and two
others countered that allowing the mayor to make such decisions would undermine
the system of separation of powers. They wrote that "an executive who
believes that a law is unconstitutional is not powerless but must follow a
process by which the judiciary — and not the executive — determines the issue in
the first instance."
Still, Bloomberg officials immediately called the ruling an affirmation, and
perhaps even an expansion, of the mayor's powers. It was certainly viewed
as an auspicious start for Mr. Bloomberg's second term, in which he and his
aides were already claiming an electoral mandate.
Jeffrey D. Friedlander, a lawyer for the city, said the decision set the ground
rules going forward and shifted the burden to the Council to prove that a law
was not illegal before it was implemented. In the past, the administration
often sued to block a law. "It's a big deal in the context of the mayor
and the Council and the adoption of local laws," he said.
While Ms. Quinn and other council members did not deny that the ruling was a
setback, they sought to play down its impact on the Council by saying that it
was more of a technicality than a true expansion of the mayor's powers.
"What this says is if the mayor disregards our law, I have to sue first as
opposed to the reverse," she said. "So that's a technical matter of who
assembles their lawyers first, and you know, I hope we don't have to do that but
we are fully prepared to do that if and when we have to uphold the law."
Ms. Quinn, who is the first openly gay leader of the Council, also vowed to
pursue the issue of providing job benefits for domestic partners. Even
though the mayor opposes the law as illegal, he has said that he supports such
benefits. Several advocates for civil rights for gay people called on both
sides yesterday to work out another solution.
Among legal experts, several called the ruling a significant victory for the
Bloomberg administration.
Ross Sandler, director of the Center for New York City Law at New York Law
School, said it would seem to give the mayor a new tool with which to scuttle or
delay the implementation of laws passed by the Council. However, he added,
if a mayor were to do so in a baldly cynical manner, the courts would most
likely intervene.
"The courts can act relatively quickly in these matters," Mr. Sandler said.
"You could certainly see a situation where a great deal of time would go by, but
these issues exist in a political world and neither the mayor nor the Council
want to be so far off base that they appear to be acting unlawfully."
Eric Lane, a professor at the Hofstra University School of Law, called the
ruling a "small setback" for the Council. Nonetheless, Mr. Lane, who was
the counsel to the 1989 charter commission, said it was a shift of power to the
mayor that the city's earlier leaders would not have intended.
"One result of this will be an increase in litigation," he said. "The
Council is going to have to use a lot of its resources on litigation, which
they've not had to do until now. It's going to cost the taxpayers money."
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting for this article.
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