New York State Legislature - History

History

The Legislature originated in the revolutionary New York Provincial Congress, assembled by Rebels when the Provincial Legislature would not send delegates to the Continental Congress.

The legislature's history of corruption includes the so-called Black Horse Cavalry.

In the 1840s, New York launched the first great wave of civil procedure reform in the United States by enacting the Field Code. The Code inspired similar reforms in 23 other states, and gave birth to the term "code pleading" for the system of civil procedure it created. However, many later attempts at further civil procedure reform and modernization were unsuccessful. Today, New York is widely considered to have one of the most archaic and inefficient systems of civil procedure in the United States.

The first African-American elected to the legislature was Edward A. Johnson, a Republican, in 1917. The first women elected to the legislature were Republican Ida Sammis and Democrat Mary Lilly, both in 1919. The first African-American woman elected to legislature was Bessie A. Buchanan in 1955.

Five assemblymen were expelled in 1920 for belonging to the Socialist Party.

In a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving the constitutionality of a law enacted by the New York Legislature, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in his concurring opinion: "s I recall my esteemed former colleague, Thurgood Marshall, remarking on numerous occasions: 'The Constitution does not prohibit legislatures from enacting stupid laws.'"