Summary
In Matter of Posner v. Rockefeller (26 N.Y.2d 970), this Court held that three Members of the Assembly lacked standing to bring a suit challenging, on constitutional grounds, the validity of portions of appropriation bills.
Summary of this case from Silver v. PatakiOpinion
Argued March 4, 1970
Decided April 15, 1970
Appeal from the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the Third Judicial Department, GEORGE L. COBB, J.
Peter A.A. Berle for appellants.
Louis J. Lefkowitz, Attorney-General ( Jean M. Coon and Ruth Kessler Toch of counsel), for respondents.
MEMORANDUM. The order of the Appellate Division should be affirmed, without costs. We agree with the courts below that under our present decisions the petitioners lack standing as citizens and taxpayers to bring this proceeding. (See, e.g., St. Clair v. Yonkers Raceway, 13 N.Y.2d 72; Matter of Donohue v. Cornelius, 17 N.Y.2d 390, 396.) Nor does their status as Assemblymen give them the requisite standing to challenge in the judicial branch the validity of appropriation bills submitted by the Governor, and it matters not whether such bills have been passed by the Legislature or were still pending before that body at the time the proceeding was instituted.
Judges BURKE, SCILEPPI, BERGAN and GIBSON concur; Chief Judge FULD and Judges BREITEL and JASEN concur insofar as petitioners' standing as citizens and taxpayers is concerned, under constraint of St. Clair v. Yonkers Raceway ( 13 N.Y.2d 72).
Order affirmed, in a memorandum.