KINGSTON, N.Y. — Lawmakers in two legislative committees on Thursday approved a resolution to set aside funds to hire outside counsel to defend Ulster County Clerk Taylor Bruck against a lawsuit brought against him by the state of Texas.
But the approval did not come easily, as Republicans on both the Legislature’s Laws, Rules and Government Services Committee and its Ways and Means Committee voted against the proposal to move $50,000 from the county’s contingency fund to pay for a civil rights attorney to represent Bruck in court.
Texas Attorney General Kenneth Paxton has filed a lawsuit in state Supreme Court to force Bruck to file a $100,000 judgment awarded the state against a New Paltz doctor who mailed abortion-inducing drugs to a Texas woman. Bruck has refused to file the judgment, claiming it violates New York’s shield law, which protects providers and patients offering or seeking abortions in New York against efforts to impose criminal and civil liability originating from outside our state.
Legislator Jason Kovacs, who heads the Laws and Rules and Government Services Committee, opposed hiring the specialized attorney, saying the county attorney or other local attorney could easily represent Bruck in what Kovacs, R-Ulster, called “a very standard case.”
He said he didn’t dispute that Bruck was entitled to legal representation, but said the specialized counsel – which he estimated could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars – was not necessary and that Bruck would be better served by a local attorney who knows the local court system.
“I looked at the litigation and it’s a relatively standard Article 78 case,” said Kovacs, R-town of Ulster. Kovacs is a local attorney who, according to his legislative website, specializes in “real estate, trusts and estates, bankruptcy, and municipal law and serves as town attorney for several Hudson Valley municipalities.”
Majority Leader Abe Uchitelle disagreed. “Most people that I’ve been in contact with around this issue do not consider this a routine case,” he said.
According to the resolution, the recommendation to hire a civil rights attorney to represent Bruck came from the County Attorney’s Office.
Democrats forced discussion of the resolution behind closed doors when Kovacs began questioning Bruck during a public session about specific actions Bruck took in the case, calling it completely inappropriate to discuss “active litigation” during a public meeting.
Majority Leader Abe Uchitelle said the committee’s Democratic majority voted to end the executive session when the discussion veered away from whether to approve the money and became an “interrogation” of Bruck.
While declining to disclose the details of those closed-door discussions, Uchitelle said, “it felt like the chair was trying to determine the facts of the case.”
“I’m very concerned that some of my colleagues took the opportunity to interrogate the county clerk on his actions when the question was whether to spend the money to defend him,” Uchitelle said. “The line of questioning by Chair Kovacs was totally inappropriate,” he said, calling it “aggressive and prosecutorial.”
The full Legislature is expected to vote on the proposal at its Tuesday, Aug. 19, board meeting.
