ALBANY—A law professor said Andrew Cuomo had “the constitutional obligation to say something” about the appointment of Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor, a move which is currently undergoing judicial review.
“He immediately had to look at this and see if he could constitutionally defend the governor,” Michael Hutter, a professor at Albany Law School, told me. As the head of the Department of Law, Cuomo is charged with representing the state in court. Paterson has retained outside counsel, who said the attorney general demurred from taking the case when asked.
Hutter, who authored an opinion submission arguing, as Cuomo did, that Paterson acted unconstitutionally, also said that he didn’t envision any further involvement in the matter by Cuomo.
