ALBANY (AP) -- New York Gov. David Paterson saw the state running out of money so he delayed payments to some powerful special interests and ordered furloughs of state workers. Now he's getting sued by unions and school advocates.
He's not alone. California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting sued by unions over financial decisions, as is New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Wisconsin transferred $200 million from a malpractice compensation fund to plug a budget hole two years ago and is still being sued.
Count this as another fallout of the recession, where the judicial branch is used by special interests in high-profile cases to impose spending decisions on the executive and legislative branches.
It matters to taxpayers and residents who are seeing the courts, not their elected representatives, make decisions on billions of dollars in public spending that may have little to do with what government can afford.
"I think there has been an increase across the country and particularly in New York," said Patricia Salkin, associate Dean of Albany Law School's Government Law Center. "When the political process fails to strike a compromise ... then there is so much at stake these days that the special interest groups are resorting to the courts."
And there's a concern with that.
"The courts look at the issue in a vacuum and often times the court will reach a decision that may not have been necessary if the political process was able to figure it out," she said.
The result includes court decisions that rule on one major element of spending - for example an effort to restore school aid or to block state worker furloughs - on its legal merits, not whether taxpayers can afford it, she said.
"It's also costly to go to court and you have to think about the long-term relationships with the various stock holders who have to negotiate in the future," she said.
"You want the courts interpreting the law, you don't want them to be perceived as making policy," she said.
For those suing, the courts are a last resort when governing and millions of dollars in lobbying fail them.
"It is absolutely never the best way, but it's sometimes the only way you have left," said Stephen Madarasz, spokesman for New York's Civil Service Employees Association union, one of several that have sued the governor several times since December.
"We sued lots of governors over the years and we've usually been successful," Madarasz said. "The lesson here for governors should be when we take you to court, chances are we are on the right side."
National associations of governors, attorneys general and legislatures don't track the number of lawsuits against government cuts in the fiscal crisis. But the headlines nationwide report the result when too many interests, many of them long powerful in their state, clash with too few resources.
On Friday, New York Budget Director Robert Megna was asked by a reporter if he expected to get sued over the administration's latest plan to delay some school aid.
"You'll have to ask the people who've been suing me repeatedly," he joked.
Last week, Paterson's effort to start one-day furloughs was hit with a temporary restraining order by a federal judge who hadn't even given the administration a hearing.
"In addition to the courts that are ruling the way they are, what we need at a time we are running out of money is very quick action," Paterson said in a radio interview, calling lawsuits a distraction. "That kind of distraction going on and on has confused a lot of people (as to) how dire New York state's condition is."
The result is that governors are pushing the limits of their power, against powerful special interests allied with legislators.
"Governors are not only empowered, but obligated not to write a check when there is no money in the bank account," said Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor and two-term attorney general who had defended and been the target of lawsuits over state spending.
"Governors are refusing to spend, legislatures are trying to forestall the tough decisions, so governors are taking action that are both unpopular and unilateral and that may set them up for lawsuits that are a bit dicier," said Spitzer, who has become a commentator on finances and government since he resigned in 2008 following a prostitution scandal.
"You begin to say, `Wait a minute. Are the courts going to be requiring the state to spend money when it's not there?"'
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Michael Gormley is the Albany, N.Y., Capitol editor for The Associated Press and has covered New York politics for the AP for more than 10 years.
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