As Bronx State Senator Pedro Espada Jr. ended a month-long shakedown by rejoining the Democrats, Nassau County Republican State Senator Dean Skelos ran to State Supreme Court in Nassau County to try to stop Governor Paterson's appointment of former MTA chairman Richard Ravitch as the state's lieutenant governor. The position been vacant since March, 2008.
While Ravitch was being sworn in in Brooklyn, Skelos's lawyers were driving to Supreme Court in Mineola to argue that the Ravitch appointment violated the state constitution.
In the wee hours, on-call Supreme Court Justice Ute Wolff Lally issued a TRO and scheduled a hearing for Republicans to apply for a permanent injunction stopping Ravitch, who they called "the interloper", from taking office.
The Appellate Division lifted Lally's TRO, but allowed the hearing on the merits to proceed before another judge.
Paterson's lawyer said the Appellate Division's ruling gives the governor a chance to prove that the state constitution authorizes him to make the appointment, and that Nassau County is the wrong venue.
Democrats accused Skelos, who took the case to his home county and a Republican judge, of trying to engineer a result. Skelos said he filed in Nassau County because he lives there.
Queens State Senator Malcom Smith has given the majority leader's title to the despicable Espada as the price of getting Espada back and restoring a 32-30 Democratic majority.
Skelos has reverted to minority leader.
According to the governor, the state Public Officers Law §43 lets him fill some vacant elective posts pro tem, and there is no state statute -- and nothing in the state Constitution -- that explicitly rules out his naming a lieutenant governor.The article from the New York Law Journal.
