The ongoing stalemate over Gov. Kathy Hochul’s nomination of Hector LaSalle for chief judge has landed in court, more than three weeks after a key state Senate committee rejected the selection.
Long Island state Sen. Anthony Palumbo, the ranking Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, filed a lawsuit on Thursday seeking to force a full Senate vote on LaSalle’s nomination, arguing that the state constitution requires as much.
Palumbo’s lawsuit is likely to set precedent in New York. No governor has had their chief judge nomination rejected by the Senate since the current selection system was put into place in the 1970s.
LaSalle’s nomination has been at the center of a constitutional quarrel between Hochul and her fellow Democrats who lead the state Senate. Hochul contends the nomination remains alive until there’s a full chamber vote, while Senate Democrats say it died when the judiciary committee voted LaSalle down on Jan. 18.
Hochul has told reporters repeatedly that she was considering her options about what to do next. But ultimately, it was Palumbo — a Republican — who finally filed suit, not the Democratic governor.
“Pursuant to the constitution, the entire 63-member Senate must be given the opportunity to vote on Justice LaSalle’s nomination,” Palumbo’s lawsuit reads.
Hochul spokesperson Hazel Crampton-Hays declined to comment, citing pending litigation.
LaSalle, a Democrat, is presiding justice of the state Appellate Division’s Second Department, which gives him oversight of the state’s midlevel appeals court in a sprawling area that includes Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, Long Island and part of the Hudson Valley.
Hochul first nominated him for chief judge of the Court of Appeals — a powerful role that not only gives him a seat on the state’s top court but also puts him in charge of the state’s entire judicial system — in December.
But the nomination drew immediate pushback from labor unions and many Senate Democrats, who criticized his judicial record. Among other cases, they were angered by a 2015 decision in which LaSalle sided with Cablevision in a dispute against the Communications Workers of America, which allowed the cable giant to proceed with a defamation lawsuit against two union leaders by claiming the leaders had been acting in their personal capacity.
Progressive Democrats, angered by a rightward shift by the heavily Democratic Court of Appeals in recent years, had urged Hochul to pick a chief judge with experience as a defense or civil rights attorney. LaSalle previously served as a prosecutor.
The Senate Judiciary Committee rejected LaSalle’s nomination by a single vote in January, with Republicans voting to advance to a full Senate vote.
Since then, LaSalle’s future has remained in limbo. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (D-Yonkers) sent a letter to Hochul informing her the nomination had been rejected, but LaSalle’s supporters claim the Senate president — Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado — had to be the one to send such a letter.
That disagreement over the letter is part of Palumbo’s lawsuit, which was filed on Thursday in state Supreme Court in Suffolk County, where Palumbo resides.
The state constitution allows Hochul to select a chief judge with the “advice and consent” of the Senate. Much of Palumbo’s lawsuit focuses on that constitutional phrase, and whether it requires a full Senate vote.
He told Gothamist in January that a lawsuit was “something we would explore,” though he emphasized LaSalle was Hochul’s pick to defend.
“Justice LaSalle is entitled to an up or down vote by the full state Senate, not as a courtesy, but because the constitution requires it,” Palumbo said in a statement.
Even if the GOP lawsuit is successful, LaSalle faces an uphill climb in the full Senate.
So far, more than 20 of 43 Senate Democrats have come out against LaSalle’s nomination. He would need 32 votes in the 63-seat chamber in order to be confirmed.
