A federal judge on Friday halted attempts by Governor David A. Paterson to impose furloughs on about 100,000 state workers and withhold their raises. Northern District Judge Lawrence Kahn had temporarily blocked the furloughs two weeks ago. His new preliminary injunction bars Mr. Paterson and lawmakers from submitting or enacting short-term funding bills with those provisions. The unions went to court, arguing the cost-saving moves changed the terms of their negotiated contracts in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
“Defendants seek to base a tremendous impairment [of Contract Clause rights] on little more than the fact of the State’s fiscal difficulties,” Judge Kahn wrote in Donohue v. Paterson, 10-CV-00543. “In the absence of any showing of legislative consideration or tailoring, it is unreasonable to impose such an impairment through emergency appropriation bills, particularly when there is a unified legislative voice denying the very reasonableness and necessity of the enactment.”
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