In the dog years of politics, 2017 might feel like several lifetimes away. But for conservative activist and serial constitutional litigant Bob Schulz, it's right around the corner.
The Fort Ann resident, an engineer by training, has filed dozens of civil actions against government agencies — local, state, federal — as well as elected officials and lobbyists. He has lost count of the precise number.
His first, filed in 1979, fought a proposal to build a massive sewage system along Lake George without a thorough environmental review. The Court of Appeals ruled in his favor in 1982. Since then, his suits have targeted what he views as runaway taxation, profligate spending and constitutional violations.
Schulz currently has four suits grinding through state courts, including two questioning the use of "messages of necessity," which allow for the waiving of the three-day aging period for legislation, in the passage of the NY SAFE Act gun control law and other measures. (The NY SAFE Act suit was dismissed last week by a state Supreme Court justice. Schulz plans to appeal.) He is also suing Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver over his approval of a secret $103,000 taxpayer-funded settlement with two of former Assemblyman Vito Lopez's alleged harassment victims.
I spoke to Schulz about his fourth active suit two weeks ago at a news conference where he and I were the only attendees. When he stepped up to the podium to address the otherwise empty room, I suggested Schulz just grab a chair so we could talk.
His fourth suit, which has enlisted 96 other citizen-plaintiffs, asks the court to rule on the eligibility of several classes of people to serve as delegates to a state constitutional convention, or "ConCon."
The suit names individual defendants as well as "all other similarly situated" in their sphere of influence: Gov. Andrew Cuomo and executive branch officials, Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos and lawmakers, Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman and other members of the judiciary, and so on — all the way down to municipal employees, lobbyists, employees of political parties, and anyone who receives a public pension.
Schulz believes any ConCon dominated by insiders with a stake in the results would devolve into an orgy of self-dealing.
The state constitution puts the question of whether a ConCon should be called on the ballot every 20 years, and Schulz argues that the defeats in 1977 and 1997 were due to voters' ambivalence on this very issue. He fears the same thing will happen in 2017, the next time a ConCon will be proposed.
But there's a problem with Schulz's argument: Delegates to a ConCon — three from each state Senate district, plus 15 "at-large" — are elected and not appointed, which means that if the registered voters of New York want to select or reject Cuomo, Skelos, Lippman or the best-dressed lobbyist on Eagle Street to represent them, they'll each have a single vote to make it happen.
And I'm not sure other categories of New Yorkers — such as bankers — would arrive at a ConCon free of conflicts of interest about its potential outcome. (And before you ask: As a journalist, I would probably have to turn down nomination.)
A ConCon's purpose is to come up with proposed changes to the way New York runs its democracy, not to enact them into law. That job goes to the voters.
In January, acting state Supreme Court Justice Kimberly O'Connor dismissed the suit, arguing it wasn't legally "ripe" without an imminent convention. "The courts' proper function is to determine actual controversies between litigants, not to give advisory opinions," she wrote.
At our two-man news conference, Schulz denounced the decision as "judicial activism," which I've come to recognize as the standard pejorative for a ruling an activist disagrees with.
"The people have a right to know before the vote," said Schulz, who is appealing.
I noted that others might see it as judicial activism of the most egregious sort for a judge to exclude entire classes of citizens from ConCon eligibility. That's an abridgement of their rights as well as voters' prerogatives.
Indeed, it's the sort of thing that a libertarian like Schulz — though he prefers "constitutionalist" — should object to.
cseiler@timesunion.com • 518-454-5619