The state’s plan to limit state legislators’ outside income has hit another snag, this time in an Albany courtroom.

Judge Richard M. Platkin of the state Supreme Court in Albany ruled Thursday in favor of several Republican legislators, including Assemblyman Andrew Goodell, R-Jamestown, that the committee’s recommended restrictions on outside income are not entitled to the force or effect of law.

“In enacting Part HHH, the legislature chose to supersede only two laws: the statutes governing the amounts paid to legislators in salary and allowance and the timing and conditions under which such amounts are paid,” Platkin wrote.

“As petitioners emphasize, Part HHH does not supersede the provisions of the Public Officers Law governing the ethical obligations of legislators in relation to outside income and employment. This is powerful evidence that the legislature did not intend the committee’s reform recommendation to take on the force of law under Part HHH.”

The legislative pay commission was charged with examining a broad range of issues and submitting its findings to the legislature and the governor.

The only recommendations that could become law, Platkin ruled, were those to implement the committee’s determination of whether legislators’ salaries and allowances should be increased. The rest of the committee’s recommendations were simply recommendations advanced to the legislature and governor for consideration. Platkin also wrote that the provision in the enacting legislation that said legislative inaction is not a basis for concluding that such a recommendation becomes law.

“The committee is, however, a creature of statute, and there is nothing in Part HHH that authorized it to recommend restrictions on outside income and employment that have the force of law,” Platkin wrote. “These policy matters remain reserved for the legislature and the governor.”

The 11 lawmakers filed their court challenge in March in William Barclay et al v. New York State Committee on Legislative and Executive Compensation et al. Motions and cross-motions have been filed in state Supreme Court in Albany throughout the summer. Oral arguments were held in mid-August.

Earlier this year, Judge Christine Ryba ruled in state Supreme Court in Albany in Delgado v. New York that only the first of three years of legislative pay raises could be implemented as well as striking down limits on outside income because the pay commission had overstepped its bounds. A notice of appeal has been filed in that case.

State officials in the Barclay case argued that Platkin should issue a stay in the Barclay case until the Delgado case is resolved by the Third Department Appellate Division Court of Appeals. Platkin wrote that the state’s argument had some force, but that the lawmakers should be allowed to prosecute their lawsuit because their interests diverge dramatically from the Delgado plaintiffs.

“In the court’s view, members of the legislature have a paramount interest in being heard as parties on any challenge to the imposition of new restrictions on their outside income and employment,” Platkin wrote. “Accordingly, the motion for a discretionary stay is denied.”