Albany Republicans Seek to Block Paterson’s Nominee

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson’s naming of Richard Ravitch as the state’s lieutenant governor was plunged into legal turmoil on Thursday after Senate Republicans received a temporary restraining order that sought to prevent Mr. Ravitch from taking office.

The Republicans got the restraining order from a judge in Nassau County just before Midnight Wednesday. Paterson administration officials, however, had already rushed to swear in Mr. Ravitch at about 8 p.m. on Wednesday, and said Thursday morning that they expected him to preside over the State Senate session later in the afternoon.
Mr. Paterson said Mr. Ravitch, 76, a Democratic lawyer with a career in government dating back a half-century, would bring stability to the capital and help him end what he called the “crisis in governance” that for more than a month has paralyzed the Senate during its 31-to-31 split. The governor wants Mr. Ravitch to preside over the Senate, cast tie-breaking votes on leadership and other procedural votes and succeed him should Mr. Paterson be unable to serve.
Mr. Paterson’s move was intended to end the confusion in the capital, but it seemed chiefly to intensify it, drawing threats of legal challenges even before the governor announced his decision on television at 5 p.m.
A hearing is scheduled for Friday morning by State Supreme Court Justice Ute W. Lally in Nassau County, who issued the temporary restraining order.
Republicans are arguing that the governor does not have the authority to appoint a lieutenant governor. Their legal team drove several hours from the capital Wednesday night to Nassau County, the home county of Senate Republican leader Dean G. Skelos. “They’re going to claim he took the oath of office last night, that they did it before we got the T.R.O.,” said John McArdle, a spokesman for Senate Republicans. “It’s just going to create more chaos.”
Peter Kauffmann, a spokesman for the governor, said the administration was still planning to hold a ceremonial swearing in later Thursday morning.
“We got it after 11 o’clock last night,” he said of the restraining order, “but we had sworn him around 8 o’clock and filed all the paperwork with the Secretary of State’s office.”
The lieutenant governor’s office has been vacant since Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned last year and Mr. Paterson succeeded him; the State Constitution does not provide for filling the office in the event of a vacancy.
Mr. Ravitch is best known in New York for serving as chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 1979 until 1983, and he also ran for mayor in 1989, losing in a primary to David N. Dinkins. He was chief labor negotiator for Major League Baseball from 1991-1994, and last year the governor called on him to develop a financial rescue plan for the transportation authority.
Mr. Paterson’s aides said they expected him to take over the role as soon as Thursday. They also made it clear that he would not be a candidate for the office in 2010 and that Mr. Paterson planned to pick someone else to run with him next year.
Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, the state’s top legal officer and a Democrat, like Mr. Paterson, said this week that naming a lieutenant governor would be unconstitutional and entangle the governor “in a political ploy that would wind through the courts for many months.”
Leaders of the Republican-dominated Senate coalition said that the governor’s move would further complicate the fight for control of the Senate and that they were preparing a challenge.
The governor had his own political calculus. He and his staff believe that he can rebuild his diminished standing in the polls if he is seen to be rising above the Senate fracas and acting boldly. His campaign began making automated calls across the state publicizing the Ravitch selection shortly after his speech.
In picking Mr. Ravitch, Mr. Paterson is turning to one of the stewards of New York City’s financial rescue in the 1970s at a similar time of economic peril. Mr. Ravitch, who has agreed to forgo a salary, is a well-regarded public servant, who began his career working in Washington for the House Government Operations Committee in 1959.
He was chairman of the state’s Urban Development Corporation under Gov. Hugh L. Carey before leading an overhaul of mass transit financing while he was chairman of the transportation authority.
In his televised address Wednesday, Governor Paterson said, “This, I believe, is the right thing to do, I have no doubt of that,” and added, “At a time of unparalleled fiscal difficulty, the appointment of Richard Ravitch today will bring the governor a successor, the Senate a presiding officer and will help to alleviate this crisis.”
Senator Dean G. Skelos, the leader of the Republican caucus, said in his own address, “Sadly, once again, the governor has put his political career ahead of you, the public.” He added: “Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has already said it’s unconstitutional for the governor to appoint a lieutenant governor, and I agree.”
Senate Democrats welcomed the move. “Extraordinary times call for extraordinary action,” said the Senate Democratic leaders, John L. Sampson and Malcolm A. Smith, in a joint statement.
The Senate has been deadlocked since June 8, when Senator Pedro Espada Jr., a Democrat, defected to the Senate’s 30 Republicans, leaving the 62-member chamber evenly divided.

Whether Mr. Paterson can legally appoint a lieutenant governor has been a matter of much debate this week. One view, advanced by Democrats and government watchdog groups, is that a provision of state law allows the governor to fill an elected office on his own, if there is not otherwise a process laid out in law for filling the vacancy.

The governor argued that the appointment could solve several problems, among them the state’s tangled line of succession. The combination of an empty lieutenant governor’s office and the Senate battle has created confusion about who would take over if the governor were incapacitated. The Senate president is next in line to succeed the governor after the lieutenant governor, but both the feuding Republican and Democratic factions are laying claim to the position.
Assemblyman Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens Democrat, said, “It would guarantee a line of succession should something happen to the governor, and it would give the Senate a presiding officer to help get it out of the quagmire it’s been in for the last month.”
The State Constitution speaks at some length about what is to happen if the office of lieutenant governor is left vacant, but it makes no mention of the possibility of appointing a replacement.
Perhaps most important, the Senate’s rules indicate that the lieutenant governor cannot be counted as part of a quorum, a key issue since neither faction has the 32 votes needed to constitute a quorum.
“If he can’t vote on that, then the rest becomes moot,” said Gerald Benjamin, a professor of political science at the State University of New York at New Paltz.
There is also the lack of precedent. Before the stalemate, Mr. Paterson had not sought to fill the position, nor have previous governors done so in other instances when the office was empty.
Even proponents conceded that the governor’s decision was not sure to make it through the courts.
“This is not a slam-dunk,” said Dick Dadey, executive director of Citizens Union, a watchdog group that has backed the proposal. But he added, “There needs to be some risk-taking in order for us to break the stalemate.”
There is another unspoken rationale for the governor to appoint Mr. Ravitch. His aides believe that it may smooth the way for a power-sharing deal between Senate Democrats and Republicans by removing something Democrats have said they cannot abide: the idea of Mr. Espada being next in line to succeed Mr. Paterson.
Mr. Espada claimed the title of Senate president on June 8, and were he to retain that title, the absence of a lieutenant governor would make him second in line to Mr. Paterson.
The governor’s office considered whether to make the appointment for about three weeks. Mr. Paterson and his aides first began seriously weighing it after June 18, when both Democrats and Republicans submitted paperwork that the state requires for senators to be paid. That paperwork usually comes from the Senate majority.
The governor has not traveled out of state since the dispute began to avoid any confusion about who is running the government.
“If something happened to me, it is not known who would act as governor,” Mr. Paterson said Wednesday. “That would throw the entire state government into the chaos that is being experienced in the Senate now.”