No clear candidate has emerged, but the likeliest scenario for a coup, insiders say, is that the 31-member Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic and Asian caucus would join with an outer-borough delegation and a few upstate Democrats to plot an ouster.
Sources close to Cuomo said he's not willing to back any coup against Silver and actually wants to keep him around -- as long as the veteran pol stays cooperative....
Silver may voluntarily relinquish his leadership role after this term, said an Albany source close to the speaker.
Every now and then, I feel quite comfortable calling Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver a liar. He's usually pretty cautious, but every now and then he trips up with nonsense like:
He denied that redistricting in its current form - which by tradition has given the Democrats in control of the Assembly carte blanche to draw their own districts - has ever created districts that favor Democrats.
"You only stretch so many democrats one way or so many Republicans one way, or the other. you can't change the makeup of the state of New York," Silver said. "Strengthen my hand? No. We can't strengthen our hand. Whatever is stronger in one district is weaker in another district. Let's remember that. There are only so many voters."
Right... and the way you draw the lines would have nothing to do with the party breakdown in the Assembly or the Senate, or the veto-proof majority Silver cherishes.
Let's roll the tape, from Assemblyman Bill Parment, who ran the Assembly's gerrymandering option last time, while Silver was Speaker:
...Telling tales out of school. Perhaps the press could ask us, "Well, did you consider voter enrollments?" And I say no. Or, they say, "You mustn't consider voter enrollments." And no, we won't consider voter enrollments.
And we didn't. We considered voter performance. We don't care how people enroll. And if you ever looked in rural... New York State... you know... that everybody that's a rural Republican doesn't vote that way. And the same is true in the cities where you have heavy, heavy Democratic component, and not everyone votes that way. So the only thing we're interested in is voter performance, not voter enrollment....
There is a notion in all of this that somehow incumbents advantage themselves. To the extent that they're able - that they do - that they do and will - they will and do....
I know it's not a perfect system, and there's a lot of self-serving elements being a legislator and making this type of judgment....
Now, you bring up the fact that we allow the Senate to draw the Senate line and the Assembly to draw the Assembly line - this is true.
Though a lot of Parment's talk felt like running out the clock, he didn't make obviously false blanket denials like Speaker Silver.
We need to take the drawing of election districts out of the hands of those who stand most directly to gain by tweaking the lines in their favor.
As first reported by Liz Benjamin in the New York Daily News this morning, Erie County Executive and Gubernatorial candidate-in-waiting Chris Collins tried to make a funny last night
Collins referenced famed French seer Nostradamus' prediction that there would be three anti-Christs before the Apocalypse.
He said it's generally accepted the first was Napoleon and the second Hitler.
He said he was "pretty sure" the third is [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver, a Manhattan Democrat
Apparently Collins was speaking to a room full of decent people, because the response was, well, muted:
"No one clapped. No one cheered. No one laughed," said a Western New York Republican who was at the event. "I know I didn't. I thought it was a little harsh to be calling someone an anti-Christ." (New York Daily News)
One of those attending Saturday's dinner called the statement "unbelievable."
"It was staggering," said the Republican, who asked not to be identified. "It took my breath away. You just don't say something like that." (The Buffalo News)
Note: that was the response from a room full of Republicans.
Collins is State Republican Chairman Edward Cox's handpicked candidate for Governor next year, meaning that if Paterson runs, he will probably be the governor in 15 months.
I personally have a lot of trouble relating to or coming to the defense of Sheldon Silver, but no one deserves to be called the Anti-Christ, and it is especially inappropriate to compare a Jewish man to the single most offensive anti-semite in history. Collins has been apologizing profusely all day, calling the joke "a mistake", but it rings hollow - if the joke is so clearly a mistake, why tell it in the first place? Did he think it was okay because he was among friends?
When word gets out that you don't love the leader of the New York State delegation to the Democratic National Convention, strange things happen. Like grocery bags, swag from the convention:
Reminder of our illustrious speaker.
I'm not quite sure what to do with it. One suggestion was diaper bag, but it's kind of too nice and too large for that. I think I may have to invest in some iron-on letters that spell out "REMOVE".
When I saw the picture at this link
http://www.nydailynews.com/img... I felt an involuntary fight-or-flight response. I have very ambivalent feelings about Silver; sometimes I totally admire his political skill, other times he seems just a bundle of inscrutable secret strategy that may not have my interests included at any point.
But, I am sure as sure about his former Counsel, Michael Boxley. The man as I experienced and heard about him in my 1 session's work in the Assembly was a dominating sexual predator. He was the gateway to Shelly, and he was really, really scary. I'm apalled that this guy has somehow gotten his law license back-- apparently, since he pled guilty to sexual assault, and was not tried on the rape charges, he can do that. Yuck.
Elizabeth Cruthers was a 32-year-old legisltive staffer when she alleges that Michael Boxley raped her. She is working with the Newell campaign to get the word out about what happened to her, what Shelly did and did not do about it. And also about the similar rape charge by another legislative staffer at a later date that resulted in criminal charges against Boxley and Shelly finally replacing him.
I don't know how folks in his district will react to this, but, I sure know how I do. This guy may have been the one person at the legislature that made me the most sure that something serious was wrong there. Although he didn't rape or abuse me, the kind of threatening charisma this guy had was undeniable: both men and women were terrified of him, women moreso. (note: I'm not at all the kind of woman who is prejudiced enough to uniformly be frightened by black males-- work and play easily and comfortably with them; Boxley was just scary. Of course, some women are predjudiced like that, and that just feeds in, too).
That Shelly might be munching pretzels while a Republican staffer told her his right-hand guy raped her makes me worry for my sister that is there in NYS government now.
Read the Daily News story, then let us know whether you think this issue will play in the district.
UPDATE: Newell says this will not be a campaign issue. His reaction to Daily News story on the flip.
Does anyone else think that Sheldon Silver is having the worst day ever?
Silver has found himself faced with rapidly decreasing support from his own membership over the last decade. As the number of Democratic Assemblypersons has increased, particularly upstate, the new Assemblymen have often run as anti-Silver candidates, and the percentage of Assemblypersons who truly support Silver has decreased. Once in the Assembly, they fall in line out of necessity, but every once in a while you see the cracks.
The most recent exposure was in 2007 when Tom DiNapoli was appointed Comptroller. Behind closed doors Spitzer almost got enough Assemblymen to flip to join the Senate Democrats and Assembly Republicans in opposing DiNapoli.
Silver has through all of this kept his job through the political cover of George Pataki and Joe Bruno. If an Assemblyman opposed Silver, Bruno and Pataki would block any state appointment for any friend of that Assemblymember or even any fellow county Assemblymember's friend, thereby putting the pressure on the Assemblymember to fall in line. Jobs at the state level that went to Democrats went through the Assembly, and therefore through Silver, Bruno, and Pataki. Play nice, and we'll throw jobs your way.
Now Silver has lost all of his political cover; he has to go through Gov. Paterson and Sen. Smith, fellow Democrats who he treated like opposition party members (as did his strongest supporters, SEIU and NYSUT) during their respective terms as Senate Minority Leader. They will not be jumping out of their chairs to support Mr. Silver. They may very well work to undermine him as punishment for his treatment of them over the past decade-plus.
They will not find it hard to find Assemblymen who will privately speak for change; if they can find 53, not as difficult a task as it may seem, Mr. Speaker may find himself Mr. Assemblyman sooner than you think.
In comments
here, here, here, here, and here, we've seen a pretty frequent cycle of conversation, and not a particularly helpful one.
If you suggest that Sheldon Silver controls his conference or the Assembly, his defenders rise up and claim that no, he's not a dictator. He just does the will of his conference. Er, without consulting too many folks publically, because that would be, er, inconvenient. And all those strings he controls, like member items, capital spending, lulus, and so on... it's just part of the job. He'd never abuse them, right? Or use his power cynically to increase his personal power by, say, trading the Republicans the right to gerrymander their house so long as he gets to gerrymander his. It's just tradition, right? It couldn't be a betrayal of progressive politics because he's always fighting the Republicans.
Given the general dodging that comes from Assembly members when you push on these questions, it's hard to pin down just who's running the show. Silver himself is probably the least interested in clarifying who's in charge, a situation that serves him well since a failed long-ago coup.
Perhaps the biggest problem with this conversation, however, is that it offers an endless circle of claims and counter-claims without getting to the central point. Whether Silver himself is really the problem, or just the figurehead the rest of the Assembly hides behind, the results are still a mess. I wrote earlier:
When Silver's accused of being a dictator, his defenders claim he's only doing the will of the conference. At the same time he has no small amount of leverage over his conference.
My explanation is that it's a mutually-reinforcing disaster, where legislators fear and hide behind Silver as is convenient for them, and reap the benefits if they stay with the pack.
I know a lot of TAP folks are excited to see Paul Newell and Luke Henry challenging Speaker Silver. I'm certainly delighted myself, glad to see that someone is willing to take on so powerful a legislator by challenging the very way he works.
I worry, though, that we need to be looking well beyond the Speaker's chair. Even if a reformer were to knock Silver out in a primary, it's not likely a reformer would become Speaker. The rest of the Assembly is still there, with plenty of legislators who've spent a long time learning from Silver and their colleagues how to make this system work.
Reformers need to be very careful in how they approach Sheldon Silver - not because he's so wonderful personally, but because of the way he's carefully assembled a story and a supporting cast. Allowing Republicans the Senate has let him cast himself as a progressive, and his battles with the Governor's office have let him cast himself as the defender of legislative prerogatives, the leader of "the people's house".
Effectively challenging the support Silver gets demands more than just challenging Silver. It's not hard to tell true and dismal stories about the Speaker for contrast. Unfortunately, it keeps us attacking the biggest and most prominent head of a hydra. We need to be showing voters the hydra, how it reaches their districts directly, and how their own representatives are a part of it.
Silver is too important to ignore. At the same time, however, focusing our ire on Silver (and similarly on Bruno) is to target only one aspect of Albany's dysfunction. Silver's job titles certainly include that of lightning rod, taking heat himself, keeping it away from his conference. If we want to reform the New York State Legislature, we need to start looking at all of its members, not just the ones who happen to be on top of the heap.
We need to break a vicious cycle that's limited New York for decades. Challenging Sheldon Silver on his own turf is certainly part of that, but we also need to challenge everyone who keeps this cycle going. That's going to mean regular criticism of the Assembly, not just its Speaker.
As Democrats, we're pretty good at challenging Republican Senators across the board, not just Bruno. We need to accept that the same lesson applies on our own side of the aisle, in the Assembly. That won't come easily.
(More on this when I get back to New York, but I will say this: one of the reasons that I went to work for Brian Keeler's campaign was something he said in pretty much every stump speech he gave. He said, "The first thing I want to do when elected is to make it much easier for YOU get rid of ME." We need a few dozen more folks willing to do just that. - promoted by phillip anderson)
I know there's a New York Power Authority, but this isn't about electrical energy - it's about the concentrations of political power that New Yorkers take for granted. Putting power against power isn't working so well, and we may need to find a different approach.
Today's New York Times asks where Sheldon Silver's gone in this age of blasts between Joe Bruno and Eliot Spitzer:
Speaker Silver, above, contented himself to lie in the weeds. Having served a dozen years as former Gov. George E. Pataki’s chief Democratic foil — and as the party’s loudest voice in the capital — Mr. Silver has spent the first few months of the year largely trying to stay out of Mr. Spitzer’s way.
I'm sure there are people who see Silver's quiet as a hearty endorsement of Spitzer's reform push, but I'm inclined to think he's letting Bruno take all the heat rather than make it clear how little he really likes reform. Or maybe I'm too cynical...
Here's video of Shelly's speech to the Reform Day In Albany conference on Monday. It took all day to upload because it is just so...awesome. And stuff.
Yesterday's Capitol Confidential reports that the Assembly celebrated Reform Day with rules changes that inch the body closer to being the public deliberative body it's supposed to be.
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton celebrates a victory for local school funding in today's Ithaca Journal. It's a stirring tale of "Effective State Government", complete with citizen lobbyists, cooperative legislators (starting from the leadership on down), and everyone working together. Or is it?
I like Brodsky, some days. I thought his recent op-ed was pitiful, but it sort of makes sense if he's aiming to become Speaker.
Here's a hard question, though. Would Speaker Brodsky really be that much different from Speaker Silver? Would there be opportunities (outside of Westchester) for change?
This morning's New York Times has a good preview of the coming battle over the first budget of the Steamroller era. There's even a new twist. New analysis from both the Senate and the Assembly say that Lawmakers will have a billion more bucks to play with than what Governor Spitzer has projected. Hell, there are already threats being leveled from the Senate Majority Leader. Pass the popcorn. This one is shaping up to be quite the battle royale. More from the Times:
Legislative leaders put a few more cards on the table on Monday in the high-stakes poker game that is the state budget process, insisting that the state will have nearly a billion dollars more to spend than Gov. Eliot Spitzer has projected.
Their predictions begin one of the most important skirmishes in the annual battle over the state budget: the revenue estimate, in which officials try to predict how much money the state will collect in the next fiscal year, which begins on April 1, so they will know how much they can plan to spend.
Governor Spitzer proposed a $120.6 billion budget last month, but the Legislature - which, as usual, wants to spend more than the governor does - predicts that the state will have more revenue coming in, and more to spend. The Assembly, controlled by Mr. Spitzer's fellow Democrats, is projecting that the state will have $834 million more to spend. And the Republican-led State Senate estimates the extra revenue at $996 million.
Senator Joseph L. Bruno, the Republican majority leader, hinted on Monday that the governor and the Legislature could be headed for another budget showdown, of the kind that became common toward the end of the Pataki administration.
I have been looking at how the Member Item database that we fought to gain access to reveals patterns of power and influence in Shelly's house. While I totally agree with recent posts by AM that the debt entered into by state Authorities is the real "big pig," the member item system is a part of how the current power structure is organized and kept disciplined.
Unlike the Senate, better than half of the more than 190 million in member items (looking at the three fiscal years we have available) is doled out to groups of Members. There are 169 different groupings! We can, however, look a little closer at the amounts each member has for his/her own discretionary use in the district. There are a lot of members, so, this pie graph from the Excel spreadsheet I have made is mostly conceptual:
Guess whose piece is that big blue chunk?
That represents over 22-and-a-half million bucks!
Those are the words of Governor Eliot Spitzer. They describe Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's abandonment of the deal he made with the governor over the selection of a new state Comptroller. More from the New York Daily News:
"You have just witnessed the insider game of self-dealing that unfortunately confirms every New Yorker's worst fear," Spitzer told reporters after legislators voted 150-56 in joint session to elect DiNapoli, a Nassau Democrat with virtually no financial experience.
"Legislators and their leaders had an opportunity to rise above and show they have listened, learned, absorbed, but they did just the opposite. They returned to the cocoon of the Albany status quo that has driven their behavior for too long."
He's right. What we witnessed yesterday was the same old backroom power play that has made our state government a punchline for far too long. Mr. Silver was given the opportunity to show that he believes in reform, that he believes in opening up the process to public scrutiny, that he believes in merit over patronage. He declined. At least now we don't have to wonder as to which side Mr. Silver is on. We now know that he isn't on our side. In fact, yesterday Silver showed the world that he's on the wrong side, the side of the status quo. This is unacceptable.
