(The Center Square) — New York’s highest court has ruled that an ethics watchdog commission that targeted former Gov. Andrew Cuomo over a controversial book deal doesn’t violate the state constitution.
The 4-3 ruling issued Wednesday by the New York Court of Appeals overturned two previous court decisions, which determined the state Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government was created without a required constitutional amendment and lacks oversight of how the governor and other top officials appoint panel members.
“While the act extends very close to the boundary of permissible legislation, it is not intrinsically a constitutional affront to the separation of powers doctrine,” Judge Jenny Rivera wrote in the 35-page ruling.
The decision stems from a long-running legal battle between former Cuomo and the ethics watchdog, which was investigating his $5.1 million book deal before he filed a lawsuit declaring the panel unconstitutional.
In a dissenting opinion, Appeals Court Judge Michael J. Garcia pointed out to two other New York courts that the law creating the commission violates the “bedrock principles” of separation of powers in the state constitution. He argued that the court’s majority erred by overlooking the “scope and limits” of the ethics commission raised by the lower courts.
In 2020, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics initially approved Cuomo’s request to write the book. However, a year later, the commission walked back that approval, saying Cuomo had used his staff and state resources on the book. The panel ordered Cuomo to forfeit the $5.1 million a publisher paid him.
Cuomo sued to block the move, saying it was fueled by politics and deprived him of due process. In August 2022, a state judge overturned the commission’s order after ruling that the panel had sidestepped the rules by not holding a hearing on the fines.
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat who took over after Cuomo resigned in August 2021 amid a sex scandal, signed a bill last year disbanding the commission and creating the new panel, which rekindled efforts to clawback the money from Cuomo’s book deal.
Cuomo’s lawyers say Hochul’s move to create the ethics commission “blatantly violates the separation of powers because it creates an unaccountable agency exercising quintessentially executive powers.”
However, the appeals court’s majority said lawmakers approved the law to act as “a narrow but crucial gap arising from the inherent disincentive for the executive branch to investigate and discipline itself, which has serious consequences for public confidence in government.”
“The act does not displace the executive branch to accomplish that goal; instead, it confers upon an independent agency power to enforce a narrow set of laws, thus mitigating the unique danger of self-regulation,” they wrote in the ruling. “The act addresses a threat to the legitimacy of government itself with an extraordinary response.”