ALBANY—Buried in his 20-page decision enjoining Richard Ravitch from acting as lieutenant governor, Supreme Court Justice William LaMarca addressed an argument by David Paterson’s attorneys that only Andrew Cuomo, as attorney general, had standing to sue over the governor’s appointment of Ravitch. In LaMarca’s view, at least one avenue to Cuomo’s involvement is closed.
Executive Law § 63-b provides that the “Attorney General may maintain an action, upon his own initiative or upon the complaint of a private person, against a person who usurps, intrudes into, or unlawfully holds or exercises within the state a franchise or a public office…” This statute is a codification of the common law quo warranto action by the Attorney General to challenge the results of an election (Delgado v Sutherland, 97 NY2d 420, 741 NYS2d 171, 767 NE2d 662 [C.
