This year, New York is struggling to pass a budget, for the third year in a row. If the Majority needed only to agree on how to spend billions of your tax dollars more than last year, the budget would be done on time. But our state government’s wasteful spending is only a part of the problem.

See, every year, the governor, along with the Senate and Assembly Majority leaders, adds substantial changes to our laws through the budget. Most of those changes, like the pro-criminal bail laws, have been disastrous. If the governor dislikes the submitted policy changes, then she laments the policy added to the budget. If the Senate and Assembly leaders dislike the policy, then they lament the policy added to the budget. While school districts and local governments sweat out their funding for the year, the Majority leaders point fingers at each other and kick the can down the road until they can come to some agreement on policy.

However, the representative government is not supposed to be three people in a room making the law for 20 million citizens, but, frustratingly, that is what happens every year in New York state. Sure, other bills become law outside the budget, but not unless there is an agreement between those three people. And nowhere is this abuse worse than when three people negotiate sweeping policy in the budget. Since 1938, our state constitution, under Article VII, Section 6 and 7, requires appropriation bills to be about appropriations, meaning budget bills should be about allocating money; they should neither reference other laws nor make changes to any other law. For some reason, this constitutional provision is ignored, and policy becomes the major issue in the budget. It begs us to ask an important question: why do our state elected leaders ignore the constitution when they have sworn to uphold it?

If either side adds policy to the budget, the fix is simple. If inserted by the governor, the New York Legislature should operate as a co-equal branch of the government by representing the people they serve and utilizing their constitutionally enumerated power. Under Article VII, Section 4, the Legislature has the power to strike provisions from the governor’s proposed budget and, once that budget passes both houses, it is adopted. If inserted by the Legislature, the governor should line-item veto those provisions according to both Article VII, Section 4 and Article VI, Section 7. If our elected leaders followed the state constitution, as they swore to do, citizens and elected leaders could adequately communicate on important policy issues so the Legislature could engage in a healthy debate before voting on a bill; if the bill passed both houses, then the governor could weigh the pros and cons of the bill before signing it into law; the way we do it now is just bad government.

In my opinion, neither the New York State Legislature nor the governor should get paid for this unconstitutional perennial dance. We represent many people who work hard, pay their taxes and have granted us the power to serve them. Proposing laws, like the one proposed by the Assembly speaker, to grant legislators’ pay for unnecessary and unconstitutional work, is a slap in the face to hard-working New Yorkers. Just like anyone else, elected leaders shouldn’t get paid if they aren’t doing the work.

Andrew Molitor, R-Westfield, represents the 150th Assembly District, encompassing all of Chautauqua County. For more information on Assemblyman Molitor, follow him on Facebook.