Unitary Executive in NYC: No rights for gays

New York City is a city of dreams.

We dream that our mayor is "really a Democrat."

We dream that he respects civil rights.

We dream that our mayor doesn't have to walk the GOP party line.

The dreams of New York are like a gentle blanket of snow.

That is to say, they quickly turn to brown slush.

The Bloomberg administration sought and received permission from the state's highest court to disregard laws it doesn't like, putting it in league again with the Bush administration's willful disregard for the safeguards of democracy.

In a stunning blow to the separation of powers, the administration argued and the court ruled that the mayor is free to ignore any city laws he personally feels are not legitimate under state or federal law.

The city law at issue?  Giving equal rights to gays, this time in the form of a law that would provide domestic partners with benefits similar to those enjoyed by married couples.

So, is Bloomberg anti-gay?  The article says, "Even though the mayor opposes the law as illegal, he has said that he supports such benefits."  I've written before when Bloomberg hypocritically claimed to support gay rights while using every legal tool at his disposal not to enforce them.  

His argument seems to be that Citizen Bloomberg supports gay rights, but as a public official Mayor Bloomberg is forced to say that no such rights exist.  Fine.  I'll have Citizen Bloomberg over for dinner sometime.  But I'll fight the Mayor every step of the way.

This ruling goes beyond Bloomberg's hypocrisy.  Like Bush, he is claiming the right to be executive, legislator, and judge.  As the court's chief justice wrote in a dissent,

"an executive who believes that a law is unconstitutional is not powerless but must follow a process by which the judiciary -- and not the executive -- determines the issue in the first instance."

That "old-fashioned" view did not prevail.  

Unitary executive, welcome to New York --  and watch out for those piles of melting slush.

•  added note

  note also that this ruling will affect the NYC mayor's office will after Bloomberg's gone, and it will ONLY benefit future Republican mayors (since, unless I'm mistaken, the city council is going to be controlled by Democrats into the imagineable future).

  So it not only expands the power of the mayor, but effectively does it only for Republican mayors.

  by emptypockets on Wed Feb 15, 2006 at 10:53:24 AM PDT

•  That's a bit misleading...

  ...since the law in question didn't provide for domestic partnership benefits but instead required deals made between the city and outside vendors to require that the outside vendors provided benefits for domestic partnerships.  And the law probably is unconstitutional as written.

  But the pity is, instead of using this opportunity to create laws granting real benefits for domestic partnerships, and helping our city lead in the fight for gay rights, Mayor Bloomberg used this as nothing more than an opportunity to protect city contracts.  What moral cowardice.

  by Jay Elias on Wed Feb 15, 2006 at 11:05:00 AM PDT

  •  thanks for the clarification

    I understood the law required employers who do business with the city to provide domestic partnership benefits, as you say.

    Why is it probably unconstitutional?

    (Put another way: would a law saying the city is not allowed to do business with employers with openly  racist or sexist hiring practices also be unconstitutional?)

    by emptypockets on Wed Feb 15, 2006 at 11:12:47 AM PDT

    •  Without going into details...

      ...because I'm not enough of an armchair lawyer to explain this properly, it is unconstitutional because it runs counter to state and federal laws regulating the awarding of public contracts and employee benefits.

      Due to the complicated way these multiple statues influence each other, the local law must agree with the state and federal law.  So, a law preventing the city from doing business with a racist company would be constitutional, but a law preventing the city from doing business with a sexist or homophobic company would be unconstitutional.

      by Jay Elias on Wed Feb 15, 2006 at 11:54:44 AM PDT

      •  Disclaimer...

        ...this is what I have gathered by watching and reading local news.  I am not a lawyer, and I want to make that clear for any readers.

        by Jay Elias on Wed Feb 15, 2006 at 12:01:23 PM PDT