NY Lawmakers IQ Test: One Simple Question — Easy, No Tricks

Albany Lawmakers: Pick and ID Pictures; No Cheating; No Peeking at Neighbor

(take your time - all day if you need it)

Pop Quiz: Which one are you? Why don't you know the difference? 

That wasn't so hard, was it? So, why was this test developed especially for you? The background follows below (psst: I'll be honest, I had some professional help drawn from Bufflalo News here –the highlights are my editing to fit this post): 

State law set up a panel who will say yes or no to a pay raise. It impanels six people who will vote on recommended pay hikes for lawmakers, statewide officials such as Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, and agency commissioners.

Q:  Who will sit on the 6-person panel?

A:  Anyone the governor and lawmakers want. The will specifically say: “No panel member shall be disqualified from holding any other public office or employment.”

Q:  What does that mean exactly?

A:  Well, it means aides to Gov. Cuomo, people with business before the state, and even lawmakers, or their staff could serve on the panel that will recommend a pay hike and how much the raise would be.

Q:  What is the time frame for the pay plan to be in place?

A:  November 15, 2016. And, that is just in time for those in office to run for re-election which happens to be two weeks before the pay panel’s report reports out.

Q: Is all this legal? (well yes, but some might say it's also "sneaky and underhanded").

A:  The implementing bill will say that the panel and their ruling “shall” – or must – “have the force of law.”

Ergo: If the panel recommends a pay hike, then the raise automatically becomes law on January. 1, 2017 – unless “abrogated” (which means: not voted on; or if voted on, does not pass; or, if passed, is cancelled or repealed) by the lawmakers themselves, which the new law will stipulate.

In plain English that means: (1) only an act of the Legislature can stop the pay hike recommendations for their pay raise, and (2) lawmakers constituents will never know how their representatives stood on the issue of raising their own pay before the election.

Negotiators for the panel and rules, etc., also tossed in another word – “modified” – into the bill’s wording. Okay, what does that mean? Well again in simple English it means: that if the lawmakers don’t like the panel’s pay level recommendations, they can modify, or increase, the salary levels to whatever level they can negotiate with the governor and then it becomes law.

Then we see this handy provision. 

The panel’s recommendations are effective on “the first of January after the general election in November wherein members of the state Legislature are elected following the year in which the commission is established, and on the first of January following the next such election.” 

Translation: The raise can come on January 1, 2017, and then again on January 1, 2019. Neat trick, isn’t it? Call it representative government, right? My aching ass!!!