Court Opinion

ID: 9723735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:29:29.763346+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:51.400362
License: Public Domain

Rosenblatt, J. (dissenting in part).
The plain language of Election Law § 3-212 (2) provides that the “majority” of a board of elections must authorize any action by the board. The Appellate Division unanimously concluded that this provision prohibits a single commissioner from bringing suit on behalf of a board of elections. No one can fault that Court for adopting this interpretation; indeed, it is difficult to read the statute any other way.
The majority, however, concludes that, because the State Constitution mandates equal partisan representation on boards of elections, Commissioner Graziano is authorized to go to court based only on his insufficient claims of imbalance. I dissent because Graziano has failed to allege an unequal representation. In my view, an aggrieved elections commissioner has capacity to sue, but a commissioner who does not allege an actionable grievance has no standing to do so.
I agree that in a proper case—one in which a single commissioner properly alleges a threat to a board’s partisan equilibrium—the statute’s plain language should yield and the commissioner should have capacity to sue. When a board of elections becomes unbalanced along party lines because of a practice imposed on it by an outside governmental entity, applying the facial command of Election Law § 3-212 (2) would impair the statutory and constitutional scheme set forth by Election Law § 3-300 and New York Constitution, article II, § 8. The threshold for suit, however, should not be easy to meet. Even when justified by a compelling constitutional purpose, I think it unacceptable to cast aside an explicit legislative command based on a claim so bereft of substance as the one before us. In short, Graziano lacks standing.
As this Court observed in Society of Plastics Indus., Inc. v County of Suffolk (77 NY2d 761, 772-773 [1991]), we require the party seeking review to allege an injury in fact to ensure that it “has some concrete interest in prosecuting the action *484which casts the dispute ‘in a form traditionally capable of judicial resolution.’ The requirement of injury in fact for standing purposes is closely aligned with our policy not to render advisory opinions” (citations omitted). This interest becomes all the more pressing when, as here, we look beyond the plain reading of a duly enacted statute to find an implied cause of action in our State Constitution. In recognizing capacity to remedy an unconstitutional disequilibrium on a board of elections, we should not relax our well-established standing jurisprudence.
The majority insists that we fail both to assume the truth of Graziano’s allegations and give him the benefit of every favorable inference. On the contrary, no amount of assumption and inference can validate inadequate pleadings. Although it has industriously mined the pleadings, the majority has not identified a single claim by Graziano of an injury to the Republicans arising out of imbalance on the Board. We have plumbed the record for any and every inferences favorable to Graziano, and found it wanting.
In his effort to rebut the County’s argument that he lacked standing, Graziano fails to claim that the County’s hiring policies diminished his political party’s representation on the Board. In his petition, Graziano genetically maintains that the County has “usurped the Board’s authority ... to maintain a proper balance of staff positions between the two major parties.” Elsewhere, he argues that the County’s policies “caused an imbalance in the ‘equal representation of the two political parties’ that the Board is constitutionally required to maintain in its composition.”
These conclusory arguments do not amount to a claim of injury to the Republicans. Graziano’s submissions include a litany of allegations concerning delays and obstructions in the hiring of Board staff, which, he maintains, resulted in political imbalances on the Board. But the claims he articulates—and at great length—fall far short of the mark. Alleging repeated delays in authorizing new hires does not spell out a political disequilibrium detrimental to one’s own political party. In and of itself, a delay does not disserve one political party more than the other. Further, claiming county interference with Board hiring is different from alleging an injury unique to Republicans on the Board. Graziano includes a chart detailing the effects of a hiring freeze, but a hiring freeze and even a generalized workforce shortage do not constitute harm to his political party. Likewise, an allegation of interim shortages that alternately affect both *485parties does not state a claim that the County’s practices have placed Graziano’s party at a consequential disadvantage. Rather, such impairments suggest an injury to the Board as a whole.
Graziano supplies this Court with a catalogue of alleged grievances that, as he presents them in his pleadings, do not address the issue of unequal Republican representation. I could accept as given that the County obstructed Board hiring. But a claim of county interference is readily distinguishable from a suit claiming that county interference uniquely disadvantaged Graziano’s political party. To rebut the County’s standing challenge, Graziano needed only to jump the shortest of pleadings hurdles, with a straightforward complaint alleging injury unique to his party. He does not.
When all is said and done, Graziano offers nothing more than the hollow assertion that the County’s decision to block the appointment of two election specialists—one Democratic and one Republican—upsets the political equilibrium on the Board staff. On its face, however, these two vacancies reflect equal representation (or equal diminution), as opposed to an impermissible partisan tilt against Graziano’s party. Graziano thus advances his claim of partisan imbalance without even suggesting, let alone alleging, that his own party was the least bit shortchanged. Having failed to allege a legally cognizable injury to his party, Graziano lacks standing and his claim was properly dismissed.
I therefore respectfully dissent in part, and would affirm the order of the Appellate Division dismissing the petition.
Judges Ciparick, Read and R.S. Smith concur with Judge Graffeo; Judge Rosenblatt dissents in part and votes to affirm in a separate opinion in which Chief Judge Kaye and Judge G.B. Smith concur.
Order modified, etc.