Times Union photo illustration by Ty Stewart.

Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay, center, and Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, right, during the Conservative Party of New York’s annual political action conference in February at the Hilton Hotel in Albany. Both Republicans have bemoaned a new limit on earned outside income for state lawmakers.

Who could have foreseen that lawmakers in the state Assembly and Senate would this year have to limit their outside earned income to $35,000? No one at all, except for the legislators who more than two years ago took part as a bill establishing the cap moved from committee consideration to floor votes in both chambers, as well as anyone with the ability to read or view news reports and commentaries on the long-simmering issue of legislative pay.

The income limit, signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul at the very end of 2022, was intended as a counterweight to the whopping $32,000 increase in legislative salaries........

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