Local Lawmakers React to Sheldon Silver Corruption Charges

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver arrives to the courthouse in New York.

Former New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver could be headed to prison and the Center For Public Integrity isn’t surprised.

Silver’s defense amounted to arguing that he was only carrying on business as usual, that what he did was no different than the standard practices of all legislators, the wheeling and dealing which is necessary for government to function. Silver has vowed to appeal his conviction.

Albany Law School Professor Vincent Bonventre says prosecutors didn’t necessarily prove that Silver broke the law but succeeded in convincing the jury he was corrupt.

And it offers one of the most significant victories in the tenure of Manhattan U.S Attorney Preet Bharara, who has made no secret of his intention to pursue the “caldron of corruption” in Albany, and who had been accused by some of prosecutorial overreach.

Silver’s conviction Monday on seven felony counts related to a pair of schemes to enrich himself brought his almost four-decade career as a state lawmaker to a close.

If the answer depended on our current governor to sweep out the muck, the answer would clearly be no. You had to smirk at Andrew Cuomo’s statement in the moments after the Silver verdict, in which he vowed “zero tolerance” for public corruption in one of the nation’s most corrupt statehouses. The New York Times dubbed Silver the “king of earmarks” because he used them as a way of exercising power over members of his political caucus.

Assemblywoman Claudia Tenney, R-101, New Hartford, was more outspoken than Brindisi in her comments. Silver, never before shy to let constituents know where credit is due, was the only local elected official not present on the celebratory first day.

A dozen federal lawmakers convicted of crimes are collecting more than $700,000 a year in federally funded pensions, according to the Taxpayers Union, a citizen watchdog group. Instead, he simply passed on the names of asbestos patients from a cancer doctor in exchange for secretly steering taxpayer money Silver controlled to support the doctor’s research, collecting hefty legal referral fees in the process.

Lawmakers have so far resisted calls to restrict their outside income, but it’s likely to be one of several proposals up for consideration when they reconvene next month.

Thirty state lawmakers have left office because of criminal charges or allegations of misconduct since 2000.

At the State of the State Address tonight, New York State Senator Tom O’Mara says that while there are already new reforms in place to prevent future corruption, the conviction is still concerning.

Phillips also sees the conviction as a call for change.