Onondaga County Executive Ryan McMahon speaks at the Micron event at OCC in Syracuse on Thursday, Oct. 27, 2022. Mike Greenlar | Central Current Credit: Mike Greenlar | Central Current

Republican Elections Commissioner Kevin Ryan said he will not put a referendum on county executive term limits on the November ballot.

“It’s not going on the ballot unless I get a court order telling me to do so,” Ryan said. 

That complicates Democratic county legislators’ path to put term limit legislation accidentally approved by County Executive Ryan McMahon on the November ballot. 

Any ballot measure has to be approved by both elections commissioners. Dustin Czarny, the county’s second commissioner and a Democrat, planned to OK the move. 

Czarny has said he believes that after receiving a signed local law, he must put the referendum on the ballot. Ryan said that since the county executive vetoed the law (after first approving it), he cannot put it on the ballot. 

Ryan, a lawyer, said he believes he’s able to reject a ballot measure after a review of the county charter, elections law and conversations with Republicans at the New York State Board of Elections. 

“If somebody told me I was wildly off-base or I was wrong, I’m not hard-headed enough not to listen,” said Ryan. 

Legislature spokesperson Ruthnie Anagrand said that the legislature clerks had done their jobs in delivering the signed law to the Onondaga County Board of Elections and that it was true that only judicial intervention could overrule Ryan.

“Whether there will be judicial intervention and what will trigger that and which party will trigger that has yet to be seen,” said Angrand.

This is a novel situation, and what comes next is not immediately clear.

All involved parties are looking warily at the looming potential of a legal battle. Czarny told Central Current Wednesday that he anticipates the whole group will end up in court. McMahon wrote in a press statement that the alternative to stepping down would be “a legal battle nobody wants.” County Legislature Chair Nicole Watts said in her statement that the legislature would allow the legal process to run its course. 

The controversy started Wednesday. County Executive Ryan McMahon on Wednesday morning morning vowed to veto a local law, then accidentally signed it and sent it to clerks at the Onondaga County Legislature. His office sent a veto document to the legislature clerks less than twenty minutes later, and clarified the mistake after a few hours. Legislature clerks received physical copies of both the approval and the veto. 

The law McMahon approved would give voters a chance to decide whether the position of county executive and county comptroller should be limited to three four-year terms. The count on those terms would not start until 2030, and no previous terms would count against McMahon or Comptroller Marty Masterpole. 

McMahon believes that since his intent to veto the law was clear ahead of time, his mistaken signing should not count. County lawyers agree. 

“Instead of acknowledging an obvious mistake, some chose to treat it like a political victory. Everyone knew what I intended, which was to veto this measure,” said McMahon in a Friday statement. 

The legislature’s Democratic majority believes that they cannot make legislative decisions based on stated intent, but instead need to focus on the law as it is practiced. The veto came too late, they said. To override a local law, another law needs to be passed. Their own outside counsel has supported this interpretation, said Watts.

“Government procedure acts on documents, time stamps, and charter rules,” Watts said. “Any action made outside of said rules has the capacity to undermine the stability of our entire legal system.”

There are a number of potential outcomes: 

  • The county legislature could go to court to ask a judge to order the board of elections to put the measure on the ballot. 
  • The county executive could go to court to seek a writ of prohibition. 
  • Depending on the outcome, either side could appeal either case to a higher court. 

Ryan lamented the outcome, casting aspersions on Democrats’ motives for enforcing the legislation the county executive first signed.

“It’s a shame that our community has to go through this, and that the taxpayers have to pay the legal fees for lawyers of at least four different parties,” said Ryan. 

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Laura Robertson is a staff reporter covering Onondaga County. Prior to joining Central Current, she lived on the edge of the Bering Strait in Nome, Alaska, where she worked as a reporter for a year. She...