GOP lawmakers vote to downsize Legislature

DUTCHESS COUNTY — After the Democratic members of the Government Services and Administration Committee of the Dutchess County Legislature got up and left the chambers in protest, the committee’s Republican members unanimously adopted legislative remedies to the Commission on Reapportionment. The final vote tally was 10 yeas and 0 nays. 

“Well it was interesting,” said Chairman of the Dutchess County Legislature Gregg Pulver (R-19) of Pine Plains, sharing details behind the lawmakers’ vote to downsize the governmental body’s membership from 25 to 21. “Obviously we explained our side of the story and discussed reapportionment. 

“The other side of the aisle was not happy with the county attorney’s interpretation of the law, that’s their  prerogative. In protest they got up and left,” he added. “But they also knew if they did that their vote would be cast with the majority. If you leave chambers unexcused, the vote goes with the prevailing side, which is why it was a 10-nothing vote.”

The Legislature’s unanimous advancement of the reapportionment fixes on Thursday, July 8, roughly two weeks after the county’s Independent Reapportionment Commission was forced to disband was welcome news to Pulver. 

The commission was in charge of examining legislative districts throughout Dutchess after the decennial Census. Republicans and Democrats worked hand-in-hand to write the reapportionment law in 2019, but the group only formed at the beginning of 2021 and had just started getting acquainted and doing basic scut work when word about commission Chairman Richard Keller-Coffey’s apparent conflict of interest surfaced on June 24. 

That’s when Keller-Coffey, a Democrat who also serves on the North East (Webutuck) Board of Education (BOE), said he was contacted by the county attorney’s office assigned to work with the commission, to inform him the independent commission had to be disbanded. 

“It was wild,” he said, adding some of his colleagues on the commission were not pleased, but he’s “not comfortable, though tempted” to say more.

The reason was because in the eyes of New York State, Keller-Coffey’s service on the school board made him an elected official and disqualified him from serving on the independent and apolitical commission.

“It was tainted from the get-go,” said Pulver. He added that Rebecca Edwards (D-6), who appointed Keller-Coffey, should have done better due diligence. “Maybe they didn’t feel a school board member is an elected official, but he is and the law is the law.”

Pulver noted the Republicans also lost two of their appointees when the commission disbanded, as Legislator Donna Boulner (R-13) also appointed two members. Those four members then appointed three more; there were seven members in total.

Keller-Coffey said he “didn’t read the law” before he applied, which notes “elected officials” can’t serve on the commission. 

“It doesn’t say ‘except school board members, fire commissioners,’ etc., the wording led me to believe it meant elected officials like Town Board members and county legislators,” he said, adding he resigned from the commission, not because he’s “cowering,” but rather for personal reasons. “There were no underhanded intentions; I had no ulterior motives or anything.”

He asked why county attorneys, who should have been vetting applicants, didn’t red flag his application from the get-go. 

Keller-Coffey also questioned who has the legal authority to dissolve the commission and if it is officially so, as it’s an independent entity not answerable to any branch of government, including the executive or the legislative branches. 

“As far as I understand, the only thing that can disband an independent commission is a judge,” he said.

Yet Pulver said the commission is in fact disbanded and that its final work would ultimately have been challenged in court. 

The chairman of the Legislature added that now that the Legislature has approved adjusting the number of legislators from 25 to 21 and later reconstituting the commission, both county propositions will appear on the Nov. 2 ballot. According to him, the Legislature will then reform the commission after the General Election.