Silver v. Pataki

OPINION OF THE COURT

Gonzalez, J.

This appeal involves a dispute between the executive and legislative branches of our state government over their respective powers of appropriation under the New York State Constitution. Our analysis of the controversy is guided by certain amendments to our State Constitution adopted in 1927 that transferred primary responsibility for creating a budget from the Legislature to the Executive. We find that the actions taken by the Legislature in this case clearly violated the non-alteration provision of article VII, § 4 of the State Constitution which, if upheld,…