The Orange County Legislature on April 5 authorized County Attorney Richard Golden to sue New York state over a new law moving certain local elections to even-numbered years.
The state law in question will shift elections of county executive and county Legislature members from odd to even years to coincide with state- and federal-level elections.
Per the law, county officials elected in 2025 will serve three years, as opposed to four as stipulated in the Orange County Charter, to make way for future even-year elections.
That is a direct violation of the home rule power enshrined in the New York Constitution and defined in the state Municipal Home Rule Law, according to Mr. Golden, who first presented the legal move at the Rules Committee meeting on April 5.
The resolution was passed by the full legislative body along party lines, with Republican and Conservative legislators rooting for the legal challenge and Democratic members collectively against it.
“This resolution speaks volumes to the excessive power grab—we have seen far too much from Albany,” Republican Majority Leader Tom Faggione said before the vote, “[It] is a resolution affirming the role and responsibility of all of us.”
Several county lawmakers expressed concerns that federal- and state-level elections would overshadow local issues in even years.
“All of us here, when we run for election or re-election, we go out, and we knock on 2,000 doors ... and we get to say what the big local issues are,” legislator James O’Donnell, the lone Conservative county lawmaker, said.
“One of the downsides to this is we get lost in the shuffle of presidential elections, senatorial elections, and house representative elections.”
Four Democratic county lawmakers spoke in favor of the state law largely over greater voter turnout.
“I just want to point out that even though we are a home rule state, our local rules do not preempt the state law,” legislator Laurie Tautel said at the April 5 legislative meeting.
New York state lawmaker James Skoufis, a Democrat who represents most of Orange County, has been a main backer of the far-reaching legislation at the state Senate.
Three county offices, those of county clerk, county sheriff, and county district attorney, are not affected by the law because their election terms are dictated by the New York Constitution.
Mr. Skoufis, in a statement opposing the impending lawsuit by Orange County, said that an ongoing legislative effort to amend the state constitution to move most other local elections to even-numbered years would save taxpayer money.
Mr. Golden said in an April 6 statement to The Epoch Times that the lawsuit would be filed in the coming week.
Onoganda was the first county to file a lawsuit against the even-year election law on March 22.
