New York—the “Excelsior State”—has 13 law schools, a 70,000-plus-member state bar association, countless county, city and specialized bar associations, a vast array of universities, colleges and other schools with scholars of constitutional law and political science, as well as think tanks and research institutes. Yet, it was solo practitioner Roger Bennet Adler who sounded the alarm by his recent perspective column entitled “It’s Legally Perilous to Have a Commission Responsible for Election Laws” whose internet subtitle (8/9/19) and stand-out text in its print edition (8/13/19) was even more stark, reading: “Simply put, there are no available legislative shortcuts around the State Constitution. The recent attempts to ignore it to raise legislative and executive salaries via an appointed commission is in clear violation.”

Where are the voices of the scholars of the New York state constitution and other experts of law and political science about the “clear violation” that has been going on in statutorily delegating legislative powers to commissions? The most cursory investigation would reveal it to be even more flagrantly unconstitutional than what Mr. Adler so admirably describes.