On February 17, U.S. District Court Judge Jack B. Weinstein ruled that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo must call a special election to fill the vacant U.S. House seat, 11th district. Rossito-Canty v Cuomo, e.d., 15-cv-568. The seat has been vacant since January 5. Even after the Governor sets a date for a special election, the election itself won’t be for 70 to 80 days, according to New York law.

The decision says the Governor must either set the date by Friday, February 20, or justify his refusal to do so. A hearing will be held on February 20, and if the Governor hasn’t set the date, and hasn’t given a strong reason for not setting the date yet, the Judge will set the date.

The decision is 42 pages long and mentions three harms to the nation if the seat is not filled soon: (1) the inhabitants of that district won’t have any voting power in the U.S. House; (2) the inhabitants of that district won’t have access to the constituent and ombudsman services that all U.S. House members provide to constituents; (3) the nation as a whole will lose input from the member from that district.

The decision points out that the Declaration of Independence itself justified the war of independence partly by complaining that King George III “has dissolved representative houses (colonial legislatures) repeatedly…(and) he has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected.”

The decision collected the laws of all 50 states on time limits on governors to call special U.S. House elections. This research shows that in most states, Governors must act within a particular number of days. New York is one of the minority of states that doesn’t specify how soon a Governor must act. Thanks to Frank Morano for this news.