Should state lawmakers be paid even when the budget is late?

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie’s proposal to extend lawmakers' pay past the state budget’s due date doesn’t seem to have the support necessary to force a standoff with Gov. Kathy Hochul, but the move is emblematic of a state budget process that has grown more contentious than many expected in January. 

On Wednesday, Heastie introduced a bill that would keep state lawmakers paid after the April 1 budget deadline. Currently, lawmakers don’t receive their salary until a new state budget is passed. While some members are independently wealthy, others – especially those living in the especially pricey New York City metropolitan area – can’t easily shrug off a missing paycheck, giving the governor more leverage to force a budget deal. Heastie’s bill was first reported by Gothamist.

Naturally, Hochul has opposed the move, with her office asserting that New York state lawmakers are the highest paid in the country, and if they simply passed her budget, they could easily collect their checks. 

“If the highest-paid State Legislators in America are worried about their paychecks, there's a much easier solution: come to the table and pass a budget that includes Governor Hochul's common-sense agenda,” Hochul spokesperson Avi Small said in a statement. 

But some of Heastie’s members are already on board with the idea and see the current status quo as unfair to lawmakers who are at Hochul’s mercy. 

“New York law already gives the Governor disproportionate power over the budget. When it’s late, she still gets paid, lives in the Governor’s Mansion for free, and travels at no cost – while legislators are expected to keep working without pay, covering housing and travel out of pocket,” Assembly Member Pat Burke said. “She’s already said she’s willing to drag this into the summer to get what she wants. We all know what that means: starve out the Legislature until we cave. That’s not how the business of this state should be conducted.”

Heastie’s bill includes a specific condition: lawmakers should get paid even if the budget is late, if the governor includes unrelated policy proposals in her executive budget. Heastie has long opposed governors’ tendency to cram the state budget full of policy that’s unrelated to the spending plan, and both he and state Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins have said Hochul’s insistence on last-minute policy asks is a big reason why the budget is late this year.

Heastie’s bill faces long odds of passing. For one thing, there isn’t a state Senate version of Heastie’s bill yet. A source familiar with the legislation said that the state Senate was currently reviewing the bill, but its future was unlikely since it would somehow have to get past Hochul. It would require supermajorities in both the Assembly and Senate to override Hochul’s likely veto of the legislation.

But some in the state Senate agree that the current system of essentially punishing legislators for a late budget is unfair. 

“It's strange and nonsensical that legislators, who constitutionally have far less power than the Governor does in the budget process, have our pay withheld from us when the budget is late,” state Sen. Julia Salazar told City & State. “I strongly prefer to pass an on-time budget, but anyone who understands the budget process knows that legislators have no control of the budget's timeliness. Suspending legislators' pay when the budget is late just potentially coerces legislators into voting for policies in the budget not on their merits, but out of desperation. Not good.”

Senate Democrats lost their supermajority when former state Sen. Iwen Chu lost her seat in last year’s election, which means they would need Republican support if they wanted to use the “nuclear option” and override a likely veto from Hochul.

Heastie’s bill speaks to what's become a thorny negotiation process in spite of a comparatively non-controversial executive budget proposal headlined by public safety tweaks and the governor’s pet projects. 

Political consultant Morgan Hook said that no one would come out of a fight over lawmaker pay looking good, and the governor would never willingly give up her leverage. He predicted the bill will go nowhere.  

“They’re just putting this out there as a talking point to rattle the governor and say ‘oh yeah? We’re putting forward a bill.’ But I would be shocked if that went anywhere,” Hook said. 

Hook said the blame for a late budget usually falls squarely on the shoulders of the governor, though he sympathizes with lawmakers who’d simply like to pay their rent comfortably. He said the real solution would be a less dysfunctional approach to the budget process, where according to legislative leaders, actual fiscal matters – including potential responses to looming federal funding nightmares – have taken a backseat to policy debates. 

“I don’t know, get started earlier and negotiate this thing in good faith so that it’s done on time,” Hook said.