New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc. v. Steingut

Citation40 N.Y.2d 250,386 N.Y.S.2d 646
Parties, 353 N.E.2d 558 NEW YORK PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP, INC., et al., Respondents-Appellants, v. Stanley STEINGUT, as a Member and Majority Leader of the New York State Assembly, et al., Appellants-Respondents. In the Matter of the CIVIL SERVICE EMPLOYEES ASSOCIATION, INC., et al., Respondents, v. Arthur LEVITT, as Comptroller of the State of New York, Appellant.
Decision Date17 June 1976
CourtNew York Court of Appeals

Edward N. Costikyan and Jonathan D. Siegfried, New York City, for Stanley Steingut and another, appellants-respondents, in the first above-entitled matter.

Martin Garbus, New York City, and Dennis A. Kaufman, Albany, for respondents-appellants in the first above-entitled matter.

Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. (Jean M. Coon, Ruth Kessler Toch, Albany, and Franklin K. Breselor, Averill Park, of counsel), for appellant in the second above-entitled matter.

James W. Roemer, Jr., Albany, for respondents in the second above-entitled matter.

JONES, Judge.

In these appeals we confront the question whether the allowances for particular and additional services to members of the Legislature included in chapter 460 of the Laws of 1975 (the 1975 supplemental budget adopted July 11, 1975) are, in whole or in part, increases prohibited by section 6 of article III of the State Constitution.

An action and a special proceeding are before us. Plaintiffs New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc. (PIRG), and its director, Ross, by a declaratory judgment action against the Senate and Assembly, their members and majority leaders and the Comptroller of the State of New York, seek a determination that all legislators' allowances for particular and additional services and the legislation identified above, insofar as it provides such allowances, are unconstitutional. By way of coercive, implementing relief they demand an injunction barring payment of such allowances to any member of the Senate or Assembly and an order requiring any member who has received such an allowance to return it to the State; additionally they seek reimbursement of reasonable attorney fees. Petitioners Civil Service Employees Association, Inc. (CSEA), and its president, Wenzl, proceeding under CPLR article 78 against the State Comptroller alone, request a judgment declaring the 1975 statutory enactment unconstitutional insofar as it increases allowances for certain officers of the houses of the Legislature over the allowances provided in chapter 992 of the Laws of 1974 (the 1974 supplemental budget) and insofar as it provides allowances for legislative offices for which no allowances were authorized in the 1974 supplemental budget; they seek an order enjoining payment of the challenged allowances and requiring the Comptroller to obtain restitution of any such allowances which have been paid by deducting the amounts from payments hereafter to become due to the recipients. 1

In each of these cases the court of original jurisdiction granted all the relief sought. The Appellate Division modified the judgments by striking the provisions directing restitution of overpayments and by striking the award of counsel fees in the PIRG action. All parties have appealed to this court, with the exception of CSEA which does not challenge the deletion of the restitution provision.

A brief historical review will be helpful.

From the enactment of the Constitution of 1874 until the adoption of section 6 of article III of the Constitution in its present form, the amount of compensation paid to members of the Legislature was fixed by the Constitution which also provided an amount for travel expenses. 2 Details of the method of disbursement were defined by statutory enactments which provided generally for in-session payments at a per diem rate for the number of days that had expired, up to a stated maximum, with payment of the balance on final adjournment. 3 These details were changed from time to time and were augmented by a limitation on the frequency of in-session payments. 4

The adoption of present section 6 of article III, effective January 1, 1948, reflected a substantial change in this arrangement. 5 The Constitution no longer fixed the amount of compensation but provided that each member should receive a like annual salary to be fixed by law. Thus there descended to the Legislature the authority thereafter to define the amount as well as the details of salary payment. In addition, the Constitution expressly authorized, virtually for the first time, payment to legislators of allowances for particular and additional services over and above salary. 6 Authority to determine the amount of such allowances--described as 'which may be fixed by law'--was also delegated to the Legislature. Additionally, included in the section as a restriction on the newly conferred legislative authority to fix salaries and allowances was the following critical sentence which gives rise to the present litigation: 'Neither the salary of any member nor any other allowance so fixed may be increased or diminished during, and with respect to, the term for which he shall have been elected, 7 nor shall he be paid or receive any other extra compensation.'

In 1948 the Legislature amended section 5 of the Legislative Law to fix the amount of members' salaries 8 and provided current year allowances for holders of designated legislative offices by inclusion of appropriations therefor in the supplemental budget. 9 Unlike the course pursued in exercising the newly conferred authority to fix legislative salaries, no general law provision was enacted with respect to additional allowances. Thereafter, the same procedure of providing allowances for the current year by inclusion of appropriations therefor in budgetary legislation adopted near the close of the legislative session has been followed annually without exception through the enactment of chapter 460 of the Laws of 1975, that here under attack. From time to time the appropriated allowances have exceeded allowances allocated to the same officer in the preceding year and have sometimes represented new allowances for officers not previously benefited. It is this practice of the Legislature, consistently followed, of providing allowances by inclusion in current budgetary legislation alone, without enactment of sanctioning general law with prospective effect only, which gives rise to the challenges now before us addressed to the 1975 legislation.

-With that historical background, we turn to a consideration of the present challenges. Our deliberations must begin with an awareness of the respect due the legislative branch, which finds articulation in the precept that 'as a matter of substantive law every legislative enactment is deemed to be constitutional until its challengers have satisfied the courts to the contrary' (Montgomery v. Daniels, 38 N.Y.2d 41, 54, 378 N.Y.S.2d 1, 11, 340 N.E.2d 444, 451). Even more important in this instance is respect for the basic polity of distribution of powers in our State government, and the exercise of a proper restraint on the part of the judiciary in responding to invitations to intervene in the internal affairs of the Legislature as a co-ordinate branch of government--'it is not the province of the courts to direct the Legislature how to do its work'. (People ex rel. Hatch v. Reardon, 184 N.Y. 431, 442, 77 N.E. 970, 973, cf. Norwich v. Rockefeller, 33 N.Y.2d 537, 347 N.Y.S.2d 435, 301 N.E.2d

422.)

Critical to our evaluation of plaintiffs' contentions is a determination of the meaning to be ascribed to the word 'fixed' as it appears in section 6 of article III. Curiously, though as predicates for differing conclusions, both PIRG, on the one side, and the legislative members and officers and the State Comptroller, on the other, make the same assertion--that, by reason of the fact that only annual budgetary appropriations have been the basis of allowances, without any underlying general law, and, since--it is contended--such appropriations have expired by the end of the year in which they are enacted, at the beginning of each successive legislative session it must be deemed that there are then no allowances 'fixed'. PIRG's conclusion is that, with no allowances 'fixed', any allowances enacted for legislators then in office must be held to be an increase during the term for which they were elected and thus unconstitutional. At the other end, the legislative members and the Comptroller urge that, since there are no allowances 'fixed' at the opening of the session, the first budgetary appropriation allowance made in a session for each office so benefited must be regarded as an 'initial' allowance, as to which there is available no comparison and thus no increase or decrease.

In interpreting the constitutional language, several factors will be useful to us. First, we examine the apparent objectives of the provision in which the questioned phrase appears (Association for Protection of Adirondacks v. MacDonald, 253 N.Y. 234, 238, 170 N.E. 902, 903). Here, it may be assumed that the prohibition against increases and decreases in legislators' compensation and emoluments during their terms of office would serve two salutary purposes--(1) to avoid a conflict of interest by removing from legislators the authority to vote themselves financial benefits at the expense of the public treasury, and (2) to forestall the possibility of manipulation of legislators' votes by promises of reward or threats of punishment effectuated through changes in salaries or allowances.

Next, we look with advantage to circumstances and practices which existed at the time of the passage of the constitutional provision (Sweet v. City of Syracuse, 129 N.Y. 316, 330, 27 N.E. 1081, 1082). Specifically, we note that, prior to 1947, the Legislature had made it a regular practice to grant allowances to certain of its officers by inclusion of annual appropriations in supplemental budgets.

Finally, we...

To continue reading

Request your trial
45 cases
  • White v. Cuomo
    • United States
    • New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
    • March 22, 2022
    ...a legislative body that is also charged with a duty to uphold the Constitution ( New York Pub. Interest Research Group, Inc. v. Steingut, 40 N.Y.2d 250, 257, 386 N.Y.S.2d 646, 353 N.E.2d 558 [1976] ).IV. The Constitutional Meaning of "Gambling" Central to this dispute, article I, § 9 of the......
  • Unified School Dist. No. 229 v. State
    • United States
    • Kansas Supreme Court
    • December 2, 1994
    ... ... , and collect taxes or otherwise receive public funds as is clearly granted by the legislature ... Shawnee Hills Mobile Homes, Inc. v. Rural Water District, 217 Kan. 421, 435, 537 ... committee was appointed to conduct research, hold hearings, make findings, and report ... of the tax which pay for principal and interest on redevelopment project bonds issued pursuant to ... , particularly Moscow [of the Southwestern group of [256 Kan. 258] plaintiffs], argue that ...         As the New York Court of Appeals stated in Levittown UFSD v ... Steingut, 40 NY2d 250, 257 [386 N.Y.S.2d 646, 353 N.E.2d ... ...
  • Ellentuck v. Klein
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit
    • January 4, 1978
    ...Corp. v. Edythe Atlas, 40 N.Y.2d 652, 389 N.Y.S.2d 327, 357 N.E.2d 983 (1976); New York Public Interest Research Group, Inc. v. Steingut, 40 N.Y.2d 250, 254 n.1, 386 N.Y.S.2d 646, 353 N.E.2d 565 (1976); Matter of Fritz v. Huntington Hospital, 39 N.Y.2d 339, 347, 384 N.Y.S.2d 92, 348 N.E.2d ......
  • Ex parte James
    • United States
    • Alabama Supreme Court
    • January 10, 1997
    ... ... (In re ALABAMA COALITION FOR EQUITY, INC., an Alabama nonprofit corporation, et al ... Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York City; and Martha I. Morgan, Tuscaloosa, for ... in what has come to be known as the "Public School Equity Funding Case." See Pinto v ... for the Seventh Circuit observed: "Our research has not turned ... Page 875 ... up any case ... , this action lacked any party with an interest sufficiently adverse to confer subject-matter ... E.2d 822; New York Public Interest Research Group v. Steingut, 40 N.Y.2d 250, 257, 386 N.Y.S.2d ... ...
  • Request a trial to view additional results

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT