09/19/04
ווי הצלה ווערט אויסגעלויבט פאר זייער געשווינדקייט אין ריספאנדען צו קאלס
http://www.pressrepublican.com/Archive/2004/09_2004/091920043.htm
Silver's influence extends far beyond NYC home
The most powerful Democrat in the state
By JOHN MILGRIM, Ottaway News Service
NEW YORK — She collapsed, and the crowd closed in.
The woman who had coordinated a Sept. 8 tribute to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was out cold on the floor.
"Anybody got a phone?" one man yelled. "We need a phone."
One glass crashed to the ground. Then came a second and third as frenzied people clumsily rushed to get water to the stricken women.
Several purposeful steps away from the pandemonium, the honored guest already had a cell phone in hand, his thumb searching for the right buttons.
Moments earlier, Silver was telling the crowd that this Lower East Side neighborhood was his home. Now, in a crisis, he was about to prove it.
Someone called 911. Silver knew better. He called the local band of Orthodox Jewish medics, all volunteers. He said they'd be there first.
He was right. They came in less than a minute and were working on the woman as city emergency sirens were still wailing in the distance.
This unassuming man with the right numbers to punch is the most powerful Democrat in New York state. He's also a favorite punching bag for Republicans, who say Silver is the main reason why state government is dysfunctional.
Here, on his home turf in Manhattan, he's the fixer.
But Silver's strong identification and advocacy for New York City is why he's the man many in upstate love to hate.
TINY DISTRICT, BIG SUPPORT
Silver's personal life is centered on a couple of blocks in a predominantly Orthodox Jewish section in lower Manhattan.
That gritty neighborhood has been his power base during his 28 years in the Assembly.
His diverse district, less than two miles from end to end, is home to about 130,000 people and ranges from the poor streets of Chinatown to Wall Street's conspicuous wealth. Before Sept. 11, 2001, his district was home to the twin towers of the World Trade Center.
"This is really home to me. Right here," he told the crowd during the Sept. 8 tribute at the community center near Grand and Henry streets. "It's what I've known my entire life."
The center is about a block from the nonde red-brick building where he lives.
Also within a block or two are the apartments he grew up in, his schools, his synagogue and the homes of his children and grandchildren.
There's the bialy baker on the south side of the street, kosher delis and pizza. There is also Gus's pickles, where full sours (which he recommends) are sold from sidewalk barrels.
It's a neighborhood where families plant roots that last for generations, where Silver seems to know almost everyone, and Republicans have been unable to give him a serious challenge in years.
In 2002, Silver was re-elected by a margin of 13,375 to 1,040.
POWERFUL POSITION
In Albany, he heads a Democratic conference, which outnumbers Republicans 102 to 47 in the Assembly.
In both cities, he has constituents to serve, and in Albany, the two-thirds veto-proof majority he built allows him to do it while wielding enormous power.
Silver is the lone Democrat of a ruling triumvirate — the so-called "three men in a room" — in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans 5 to 3. On a whim, he can hold legislation hostage until he's satisfied with a compromise.
If the city or upstate counties need more state funds, Silver has to sign off on it.
When Assemblyman Darrel Aubertine, a St. Lawrence County Democrat, said he needed the Assembly to approve the St. Regis Mohawks casino to save jobs, Silver dropped his opposition.
"You can't do anything until he says yes," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute and a former New York Times writer who covered state government in the 1970s and 1980s.
That is what peeves Republican Gov. George Pataki and infuriates many upstate voters, who see Silver as the personification of the liberal Manhattan Democrat.
Outside of New York City, it's not just the Republicans questioning his role. In western New York, two Democrats vying for Assembly seats promised to help oust Silver as speaker if they were elected.
In Tuesday's primary, a Democratic challenger upset a Silver-backed incumbent on Long Island in a sign of voter revolt.
"If he weren't from Manhattan nobody would complain, but it is a traditional upstate-downstate cleavage, and it is always going to be with us," said Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic political operative.
STALLING TECHNIQUE
Silver's negotiating style can be maddening, strategically stalling until opponents detail their own demands and, ultimately, their weaknesses, insiders say.
Silver said he learned business dealings from his father, an immigrant who ran a wholesale hardware business from storefronts in the old neighborhood. Silver later practiced as a lawyer.
He said his tact is more a matter of keeping talks going until a deal is ripe to be made.
Privately, even Silver's allies put some blame on him for this year's late budget, as he rejected Pataki's plan to raise cash through new state-run casinos to fund a court-ordered increase in school aid.
"The Assembly has just relied on gridlock and inaction in the person of Shelly Silver," Pataki said this summer in one of his many swipes at the Assembly leader.
"It's a partisan argument," said Gerald Benjamin, a State University of New York dean, political scientist and former Republican leader of the Ulster County Legislature.
"If there was a Democratic governor, that would be the argument made about (Senate Majority Leader Joe) Bruno.
"In New York ... there's little restraint on blaming the other guy," he added.
There's plenty of blame to go around.
The state budget, which hasn't been approved on time for 20 years, was the latest ever this year. New York University School of Law's Brennan Report labeled New York's legislative process the most dysfunctional in the nation. And newspaper editorials from Manhattan to Buffalo demanded change in the way the state's politicians do business.
Silver counters that Pataki has shown little respect for him or Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno (R-Brunswick).
"All of the delay is clearly the fact the governor will not negotiate with the legislature," he said. "Unfortunately, he feeds into dividing the state rather than treating it as one."
Pataki and Bruno declined to be interviewed.
OVERRIDE
Silver says his greatest success was leading the legislature through its bipartisan drive last year to override all 120 of Pataki's budget vetoes.
He has called his members back into session tomorrow hoping for a similar showdown over Pataki's 195 vetoes to the $101 billion state budget passed last month.
INCORRECT IMAGES?
Assemblyman Bill Magee, a Madison County Democrat who backed a failed coup attempt against Silver in 2000, said a common impression of Silver exercising unilateral discretion in three-way meetings with Pataki and Bruno is wrong. He does what he does at the behest of the conference.
At least that's the case since 19 Democrats sided with the 44 Republicans who failed to oust Silver as speaker, Magee said.
Similarly wrong is an impression that upstate is neglected for the city's needs, said Magee, who chairs the Assembly's Agriculture Committee and represents a mostly rural district.
"I guess he probably would be labeled as a liberal, unlike me, but still he's come to understand what my needs are to properly represent the constituents that I do," Magee said.
Silver "is a smart, tough negotiator who has to manage a diverse and often rambunctious conference (of Assembly Democrats)," said Blair Horner, legislative director for the New York Public Interest Research Group.
"He has very little margin for error because he's essentially playing defense all the time, and that, tactically, is a very difficult position to be in."
Assemblyman Chris Ortloff (R-Plattsburgh) said any speaker from New York City is going to be bad for the North Country.
New York City Democrats "grab all they can for New York City and expect to be thanked for leaving the North Country behind," Ortloff said.
STICKING AROUND
Silver, now 60, said he's not planning to go anywhere soon. He said he has no desire to run for higher office, just to be "the best speaker we ever had."
With that, however, come priorities that transcend state government. In the midst of this year's late budget crisis, his older brother died Aug. 2 after a long bout with cancer. Silver spent the next seven days sitting Shiva, a Jewish mourning ritual.
His business dealings end after sunset each Friday. It takes a major state crisis to reach him during the Sabbath.
In Albany, the fixer goes about his work methodically. The baritone drone of his voice rarely wavers as he operates above the din around him. It seems only back home a dry wit starts to emerge.
Through a plate-glass window in his district office high above lower Broadway, Silver glances out at the three spans linking Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Shifting his gaze straight down, he smiles, gestures at City Hall 23 stories below and quips about the relative elevation of his office and the mayor's.
"The proper perspective," he said with a smile.
E-mail John Milgrim at:
[email protected]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
הטקסט שלך כאן
