STATE'S RIGHT

Court Declares NY Republicans Didn’t Break The Rules By Meeting With Marriage-Equality Supporters

A court in Rochester, NY, has voted unanimously against a claim that Republican politicians broke the Empire State’s Open Meeting Law when they convened privately with Governor Cuomo and other marriage-equality supporters before the State Senate legalized same-sex nuptials legislation last summer.

New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms filed the suit last July, claiming closed-door negotiations by Cuomo and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg with Republican holdouts circumvented the rules.  New York’s open meeting law requires that legislative deliberations be open to the public but Attorney General Eric Schneiderman argued that informal talks between politicians and invited guests were exempt from the law.

The appellate court agreed, saying the Open Meeting Law should not be “read to limit eligible guests to members of the same political party of the political caucus that issued the invitation.”

NYCF Executive Director Rev. Jason J. McGuire said he was disappointed in ruling and would consider appealing: “The truth is even liberal-leaning good government groups have had to admit that the process by which same-sex ‘marriage’ became law was a bad one.”

Um, really? Because this sounds more like a case of sour grapes. Which, we’re pretty sure is not a legally viable argument.

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