The fight over New York’s quarter-plus-trillion dollar budget – closing in on a month late – continues with little evidence of it ending anytime soon. In what has now become an annual ritual, Governor Hochul has frozen budget negotiations in order to pressure lawmakers to agree to what are essentially non-budget policy initiatives. This year, those issues include proposals to change auto insurance laws, changes to the state’s environmental review of real estate development, and to drastically change New York’s Climate Law.
What is and isn’t a budget issue? While an argument can be made that anything can be related to the budget, none of the above issues are crucial to the state’s budget. So how can the governor hold the budget “hostage,” and how does that put pressure on lawmakers?
It starts with the state’s Constitution. About 100 years ago, New York changed its Constitution to move from a budget plan that was developed by the Legislature to one developed by the Executive. The change grew out of frustration with legislative budgets that were incoherent, with little central authority to hold spending accountable. The reform was enshrined in the Constitution after changes made in the early 20th Century.
Over time, the courts have issued decisions that determined that the executive branch is in control of the budget’s development. The courts described the governor’s role as “constructor” of the budget with the Legislature as that plan’s “critic.” Those decisions leave the governor in the driver’s seat in developing budgets.
Legislators are not powerless: they can reject the governor’s budget; they can add spending to it, but if they do, they can face a gubernatorial veto. The “hostage taking” power stems from the governor’s control of the drafting of the budgets. If the budget is late, she writes the extender, leaving the Legislature with a take-it-or-leave-it option – running the risk of shutting down government. In order to avoid that, lawmakers prefer to negotiate. If the governor throws new items into the mix, they have to deal with it.
Governor Hochul has used this power in her annual budget battles. Each year, the discussion of the budget is pushed to the back burner as the governor advances her policies – policies that can only be described most charitably as having a tenuous relationship with the budget.
This year she is pushing the envelope by advancing a plan that may well lead to a dramatic weakening of New York’s landmark Climate Law.
The state Constitution sets up a detailed role for the governor. The Constitution sets deadlines for when the governor must release her plan and it then says that she has 30 days to amend it. The budget process in the Constitution lays out the governor’s requirements, then state law requires that public hearings are held, followed by a public meeting of the Senate and Assembly leadership to discuss their budget plans and their differences.
The rationale was to ensure that the public – who provides the tax dollars that are spent in the budget – would know what’s under consideration and, if they wished, let lawmakers know what they think.
The governor’s plan to change the Climate Law was never publicly released. She did not include it in the budget, nor in her 30-day budget amendments. Her plan was not included in either of the legislative budgets. The most the public has seen has been through published opinion pieces in news outlets. Hardly the basis for robust public debate. The upshot is we do know that she wants to weaken it, but the details? Not so much.
Nevertheless, if recent history is any guide there can be no state budget until she gets her way or at least some version of it. Is this approach consistent with the state Constitution? We’ll leave that to the lawyers, but obviously the governor thinks so. Is it sufficiently transparent to the public that elected officials promise to serve? The clear answer is no.
We all deserve to know what our government is up to and to have access to the decision-making processes to the greatest extent possible. Elected officials at all levels should be doing all they can to involve the public in the critical decisions of the day, not maximizing secrecy. Here’s hoping that lawmakers make sure the governor’s plans see the light of day and the public gets the opportunity to review before the deals are done.