SHELDON SILVER

SIL EV R S I

In a new book about former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Bill Sanderson describes how the speaker defeated a coup attempt.

IN 2000, then-Assembly Member Michael Bragman wasn’t happy with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver’s leadership. Silver wasn’t making time to talk with members and decision-making was dominated by the top leaders in each chamber of the Legislature and the governor. Daily News editor Bill Sanderson, in his new book “Do For Me – A True Crime Story Of Politics And Corruption In New York” published by Manhattan Square Press, showed how Silver rebuffed the coup attempt and ruined Bragman’s career. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 2, “Power.”

RON GRI P

IN HIS FAILURE to get along personally with many Assembly Democrats, (Assembly Speaker Sheldon) Silver ignored one of Al Smith’s maxims: “The legislator who wishes to get many of his measures successfully through both houses [the Assembly and Senate] must be … an organizer and promoter of good will at the State Capitol. … He must make himself liked and respected by other mem-bers of the Legislature.” One Assembly member with issues about Silver’s rule was Michael Bragman, a moderate-to-conservative Democrat from a district near Syracuse, in upstate central New York. Bragman was the Assembly majority leader early in Silver’s time as speaker. Bragman and Silver were once allies – they both backed Saul Weprin’s election as speaker in 1991. But a few years after Silver became speaker, Bragman began maneuvering to unseat him. A New York Times story in November 1997 – three and a half years into Silver’s speakership – noted that Bragman made no secret of his wish to take over. “Mike is obviously campaigning for the job. Shelly has told him flatly that he is not going anywhere, and to cut it out,” an anonymous source told the newspaper. At the time, the story said, Silver was in no danger. Silver’s standing with his members deteriorated in the two and a half years after the article appeared. Assemblywoman (Sandy) Galef was unhappy enough with the system that she became interested in how legislatures in other states worked. Galef organized a trip to Boston to learn about the Massachusetts Legislature, which suffered a scandal in 1996 when the speaker of its House – equivalent to New York’s Assembly – resigned after pleading guilty to charges involving tax evasion and accepting gifts from lobbyists. “They seemed to be doing a lot of very interesting things,” Galef recalled – such as giving legislators more say in committees and televising legislative sessions. Silver labeled Galef’s Boston trip a “junket.” “A few of my colleagues went, but because he said it was a junket, people were not interested in going,” Galef said. She was disappointed her reform ideas were quashed. “Shelly Silver – he turned his back on me.” Assembly members’ frustrations boiled over one night early in 2000 when Bragman attended a New York Knicks game with about a dozen of his colleagues. The event turned into a gripe session about Silver and his leadership. Among those at the game was Thomas Manton, a former congressman who was then the leader of the Queens Democratic Party. Manton was not

an Assembly member, but, as a political boss, he had heard the stories. He and Bragman talked. Bragman thought Manton would back him if he moved against Silver.In the following weeks, Bragman gradually and quietly built his support. By May 18, he was ready to move. “Many Assembly colleagues have come to me with great concern over the leadership in our house,” he wrote other Assembly members in a letter that day. “I have shared their views and concerns and have finally decided to respond to their call for new leadership.”His language was stronger in a news release issued the same day as the letter. It said Democratic Assembly members “want a more meaningful role in the legislative process. They want to be more informed and participate fully in decision making. Most of all, they want an end to secret deal-making by three men in a room.”“At best, Assemblyman Silver’s style as speaker has been secretive and aloof,” the news release said. “Many times, he has placed his own personal interests ahead of the interests of the Majority Conference and the Democratic Party.”“He has surrounded himself with paid lobbyists and other non-legislators who are seeking to influence members on how to vote on this matter,” Bragman said. “Working through these agents, he has sought to portray our effort as an upstate versus downstate conflict. This is wrong. We have a solid majority of Democratic members representing all parts of the state who share an overwhelming desire to effect this change now.” Edward Sullivan was to Bragman’s left on most issues. Nonetheless, he aligned himself with Bragman’s coup effort. When Bragman went public, Sullivan called Silver to explain himself.“This is not personal,” Sullivan told him. “Ed, it is very personal,” Silver replied. Sullivan said Silver was offended he would back someone trying to oust him from his job. (Assembly Member Richard) Brodsky, though a Silver supporter, also recognized the speaker’s shortcomings. He saw an irony in the leadership fight: Bragman was just as aloof as Silver, and “not personally warm and likable.” Bragman also wasn’t popular with his colleagues. “It was a sign of Shelly’s unpopularity that a guy as unpopular as Bragman got as close as he did.” And like Silver, Bragman “was viewed as very close to the lobbying community.” Yet, like Silver, Bragman was “smart, and an effective operative.” In the end, Brodsky believed, not much would have changed if Bragman became speaker.In the days before the Assembly debate and vote on his coup attempt, Bragman claimed to have “50 rock-solid [Democratic] votes.” But he went public early enough to give Silver plenty of time to counter-organize. Silver called in his chits with political leaders like Tom Manton, the Queens political boss, who abandoned Bragman’s candidacy. Bragman also failed to get support he wanted from Carl McCall, then the state’s leading Black politician – even though Bragman was an early backer of McCall’s 2002 gubernatorial candidacy. When it came time on May 22, 2000, to debate whether Silver should remain speaker, Assemblyman Martin Luster, a Democrat from the upstate Finger Lakes area – his district included Ithaca, home to Cornell University – argued that one of Silver’s excesses was holding too much control over some corners of state spending. “We need an accounting of funds that are controlled by the Speaker, funds that are appropriated in the budget and for which we have no mechanism of tracing,” Luster said in a floor speech that day. There was no public disclosure of the specific expenditures Luster worried about. All anyone knew was the total amount of the spending printed in the state budget. During the debate, Galef said she was angry about an article on the New York Legislature in the March 2000 issue of Governing magazine. Its headline was, “Yesterday’s Legislature: In the old days, legislatures were secretive and autocratic. In Albany, the old days continue.” The article said the three men in a room ruled Albany too tightly, and that other legislatures had more open processes for discussing issues and considering legislation. New York’s Legislature was “not member-driven in the way that most of the other 49” were, the article said. “I’m embarrassed by this,” Galef said on the Assembly floor. “How do I stand up and talk about this secretive and autocratic system?”When his turn came, Bragman made an argument about the way Silver doled out favors. “Everyone here has felt the frustration and the dissatisfaction with the current situation,” he said. “Member after member is forced to go to this speaker to ask for everything from paper clips to chairmanships, from parking spaces to staff needs. And you feel like your requests are being kept in a favor bank. … Either you do what the speaker wants, or you never get what you’re entitled to.” Democratic conferences – meetings at which Assembly Democrats discussed policy priorities and Assembly business – were no longer a place to seriously hash out issues, Bragman said. They were “meaningless and don’t provide the opportunity for debate. And we all know that those who dare disagree with the speaker in conference are admonished for their actions and encouraged to never do it again.” But by the time Bragman spoke, most of his support had fallen away, and Silver had brought enough members back into the fold to keep his job. Silver’s allies spoke up in the floor debate. Brodsky, always a Silver supporter, alleged that Brag-

man and his backers sought to “turn anger and ambition into institutional change.” Ronald Canestrari, whose district was in the Albany area, pointed out that Silver ably represented the Assembly before the Republican governor and Republican Senate majority leader. His comments reflected the view among many Democrats that Silver had done a good job looking out for them while they were in a weakened, minority position. “Sheldon Silver has advanced proposals that we, as a conference, have espoused, have fought over,” he said. “And maybe that does not please all of us all of the time, but there has to be a leader taking direction from his or her members. We do have that.”Catherine Nolan, a Silver ally from Queens, said Bragman’s takeover try was “an unfair attack” on Silver, who she believed helped Democrats accomplish a great deal. She quoted Al Smith from The Citizen and His Government: “He said, ‘The officeholders come and go and some of them, only some, are able to leave an imprint on the statute books.’” “But the Democratic Party has left that imprint,” Nolan said. “This Democratic majority has left that imprint in education and in labor and in transit.” Her argument was that Silver had won a lot for his party – and she didn’t want to risk those accomplishments by toppling him from power. In the end, Bragman had 19 Democratic votes, including his own. Silver had 78 Democrats on his side, more than enough to retain power. The final tally, which included the votes of Democratic and Republican legislators, was 85 to 63 in Silver’s favor. Most legislators who opposed Silver went unpunished. Sullivan stayed on as chairman of the Assembly Higher Education Committee. At the last minute, Sullivan realized Bragman would lose, so he supported Silver in the final vote. “Most of the people who were on the Bragman side, the vast majority of them, kept whatever positions they had that were at the hands of the Speaker,” he said.Sullivan and other legislators argued that the coup attempt made Silver a better and stronger leader. Over the following months, Silver built up his relationships with legislators who felt ignored by him. Sullivan asked for a sit-down with Silver, thinking it would be no more than 15 minutes. “We talked for an hour and a half,” he recalled. The two men spoke about what they had wanted in their lives when they were younger. Silver admitted he had hoped for a pro basketball career. “His dream as a kid was to be point guard for the New York Knicks,” Sullivan said.“Shelly is Orthodox Jewish. I was – am – a not really active Catholic. We talked about how that affects our work. It was a good meeting, a meeting you would have with friends. It was the first meeting I had with Shelly, even though we were both elected at the same time.” The coup attempt was such a close call Silver feared it might happen again, said a former staffer. Silver and his staff took notice whenever groups of as few as four or five Assembly members went out to dinner or socialized together, this person said. After all, Bragman’s coup got rolling when just a dozen Assembly members attended that Knicks game. Silver didn’t want to take any chances. Retribution fell hard on Bragman. Silver made sure he was shunned. He lost his position as majority leader, and the extra pay that went with it. He also lost all the power and staff he’d amassed in 20 years in the Legislature, and was moved to a smaller office. He remained popular in his district. Bragman’s Syracuse-area constituents reelected him by a wide margin to another two-year term in November 2000. But the loss of his influence in the capitol was hard to bear.Amy Paulin was elected to the Assembly from Westchester County for the first time in November 2000, after Bragman’s coup attempt fizzled. When she took office that January, she was assigned a seat in one of the back rows of the Assembly chamber. Bragman, banished to the back of the chamber as part of his punishment, sat next to her. “Don’t talk to me,” Bragman would tell her. “Because that’s not good for you.”Bragman quit the Assembly in December 2001, in the middle of his term.In the end, Bragman’s coup attempt came to naught. Though Silver was forced to improve his relationships with his fellow Democrats, the system didn’t change. It was as dysfunctional as ever. It still lacked enough public input and openness, and it still lacked accountability. Silver called the shots. He tended to tell his members, “This is what we are going to do,” Sandy Galef recalled years later. Silver kept the $79,500 salary and $41,500 bonus he earned as speaker. He kept control over who became legislative committee chairs and got leadership jobs, which also paid bonuses. And he kept control over tens of millions of dollars in state taxpayer money he could dole out to Assembly members’ pet causes and programs.From 1997 to 2001 – a period that included the time Silver fought to remain speaker – just one major bill passed by the Assembly had a committee hearing. “I never felt like the committees really worked,” said Galef. As before, members of the Assembly and Senate left major policy decisions to their leaders, who cut deals with each other and the governor in private meetings. Despite Silver’s vows of reform, the threemen-in-a-room system lived on. ■