Gov. David A. Paterson has claimed the power to appoint a lieutenant governor when the position is vacant. Since that power is nowhere granted in the New York Constitution, he turned to a section of the Public Officers Law giving the governor the power to fill vacancies in elective offices when provision is not otherwise made. Nothing in the history of this law suggests that the law was meant to apply to the lieutenant governor.

When former Gov. Mario Cuomo’s lieutenant governor resigned, Cuomo never considered naming a replacement because he considered such an action beyond his authority.Gov. Malcolm Wilson, a Republican who, like Paterson, had been a lieutenant governor at the time Gov. Nelson Rockefeller resigned, also never considered naming his own replacement. Wilson thought the prospect, by one report, “absurd.”

Even assuming the law has some relevance, its application is triggered only when there is “no provision of law for filling the same [the office].” But provision is made in Article IV, section 6 of the constitution. The temporary president of the Senate is to act as lieutenant governor when the office is vacant. The fact that the Senate, until recently, was unwilling to execute the provision does not negate its existence. Crises do not create constitutional power.

The governor’s claim flies in the face of our constitutional principles. We have been reluctant to give the appointment power to one person acting alone. When the president was given the power to fill a vacancy in the office of vice president, the president was required to obtain the consent of Congress.

In New York we have a number of offices with similar requirements. Vacancies in the offices of justices and judges are filled by the governor with the consent of the Senate, for example. When vacancies occur in the offices of attorney general and comptroller, we do not even give the executive the power to fill those vacancies. The constitution authorizes the Legislature to fill those vacancies.

We have these sharing arrangements for good reasons: We want to make sure that important offices are filled in a way that minimizes the potential for abuse and legitimizes appointees by having the consent of more than one elective office or elective body.

To accept the governor’s dubious claim to this appointment power, employed without the consent of the Legislature, allows for precisely what happened in this case: a quick, quiet, not to say clandestine swearing in at a Brooklyn restaurant under cover of darkness. Back-door appointments circumvent the letter and spirit of the constitution.

The appointment should be declared unconstitutional. Then we the people can do our part by urging the Legislature to propose a constitutional amendment to rectify this inadequacy in our constitution.

Peter Galie is a professor of political science at Canisius College and author of “The New York Constitution: A Reference Guide and Ordered Liberty: A Constitutional History of New York.”