Assembly Democrats Call on Sheldon Silver to Step Down as Speaker By THOMAS KAPLAN, SUSANNE CRAIG and JESSE McKINLEY
ALBANY — Moving to exile one of New York’s most powerful and long-serving leaders, Democrats in the State Assembly agreed late on Monday to ask Sheldon Silver to step down as speaker in the wake of his arrest last week on federal corruption charges.The Democrats reached the decision in a closed-door meeting that stretched for hours, rebuffing a bid by Mr. Silver to keep his post by relinquishing some of his responsibilities while he defended himself against the charges. “He’s lost the confidence of a majority of our conference,” Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat, said after the meeting.
On Monday night, the Assembly majority leader, Joseph D. Morelle, a Democrat from the Rochester area, went into Mr. Silver’s office to tell the speaker of his colleagues’ feelings, other Democratic members of the Assembly said. They gave him until Tuesday to make a decision on whether to step down, or risk being ousted from his position….
Blogger Phillip Anderson of The Albany Project (aka Lipris here) nailed it hours ago while the meeting was still in progress: Shelly Silver has ruled his Assembly fiefdom with an iron fist for decades now. And it seems that, not only is he basically begging to plead his case, but that his conference just sent him to his room as they decide his fate.Such a scenario was simply unthinkable just a few days ago, but the revelations of the the past 48 hours seem to be too much for the man who ruled the Assembly, and therefore, a great deal of how New York State actually operates. In short, Shelly appears to be well and truly fucked.
...we will learn Shelly’s fate in the next few hours and it will look nothing like his bullshit attempt to hold on to real power while delegating bullshit to cronies and holding on to the most valuable bargaining chip he still has, his Speakership. But make no mistake. Sheldon Silver is done
He suggests that now is a good time to get it over with, while downstate is distracted by the blizzard.We can anticipate a short intense struggle for the Speakership; we can hope that the Assembly can then promptly get its act together to resist Cuomo's austerity budget.
There is a new diary up on The Albany Project entitled The Monopsony of Sheldon Silver, with charts showing the flow of money.
...monopsony and monopsonist are descriptive terms often used to describe a market where a single buyer substantially controls the market as the major purchaser of goods and services. Examples include the military industry, space industry, prison industry, and New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. The Nation has an article on How to clean up the Albany cesspool by Stephen Gillers.His very reasonable proposals include: raising legislators' pay while strictly limiting outside income to no more than 25% of salary: "A cap of 25 percent would allow a lawmaker to earn a total of $200,000 yearly. If that’s not enough, the solution is simple. Don’t run for office. We won’t lack for candidates."
Also: full disclosure of outside income and law clients, forbidding lawmakers from official action (other than a vote) on any matter that will benefit a significant client or customer, and public financing of campaigns.
