Residents of the 64th District (East Side, the East Village, Chinatown, Wall Street and Battery Park City) please read the following article and become more cognizant about the power you have. Hate high taxation? Hate scumbag trial lawyers? Hate the high car rental fees in New York? Hate frivilous lawsuits? Well, you have the power to enact change. Please read below:
_________________________________________________________________
Two Davids mount fierce battle to topple Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver
Sunday, August 10th 2008, 4:00 AM
The single most important political contest in New York this year is the reelection race of Manhattan Assemblyman Sheldon Silver, a Democrat who doubles as speaker of the state Assembly - the second most-powerful post in state government after governor.
For the first time in 22 years, Silver is being challenged - by a pair of political newcomers - in a primary for the seat that is the bedrock of his power.
Fewer than 12,000 voters are expected to cast ballots in the 64th District, which covers all or part of the lower East Side, the East Village, Chinatown, Wall Street and Battery Park City.
But their choice will affect New York's 19 million residents.
That's because the screwed-up setup in Albany places vast influence in the hands of three men: governor, Senate majority leader - and Assembly speaker.
Every year, the trio negotiate the state budget in near-total secrecy before dumping a phone-book-size document on the desks of legislators for a vote within minutes of receiving it.
The back-room bargaining extends to nearly every matter of public importance. Like it or not, Silver single-handedly killed the proposal to build a West Side stadium without a thorough hearing or open vote. Ditto for the doomed congestion pricing plan.
That's why it's great Silver's two challengers, Paul Newell and Luke Henry - both 33 years old, both first-time candidates - are forcing the speaker, for once, to defend his record and explain why he is the best choice.
True enough, the challengers have an uphill battle: July campaign reports showed Newell and Henry with less than $60,000 in the bank. Combined.
That compares with more than $3 million in Silver's coffers. But Silver is taking the race seriously. His campaign Web site maps the state grants and programs he has brought to the district over 32 years in office.
He can stand before the voters and say that he supported the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit that is bringing billions to city schools. He also used his one-man veto to block a vote on the death penalty, essentially ending it in New York.
At the same time, Silver's record also includes power plays that are less defensible - like the way he rammed through an end to the commuter tax a decade ago. The move has cost New York City more than $5.5 billion in revenue.
It was also on Silver's watch that Albany was dubbed America's most dysfunctional legislature by the Brennan Center, a research and advocacy group based at New York University Law School. The infamy was well deserved because of the capital's excessive secrecy and concentrated power.
I'd rather lose on the death penalty or congestion pricing through an open process than win because of the whim of a pol operating behind closed doors.
Newell, a community organizer and Barack Obama delegate, says that killing congestion pricing hurt a district where asthma runs at twice the citywide rate and particulate pollution - soot - is higher than anywhere in the five boroughs. Good point.
And Henry, an attorney who volunteers on community environmental programs, harps on the fact that nobody knows whom Silver does business with when he's moonlighting from his "part-time" Albany job.
Silver is of counsel to Weitz & Luxenberg, a personal-injury firm, and an investor in a business that finances lawsuits - but the speaker refuses to disclose who his clients are or his income.
"A legislator should bend over backward to avoid even the appearance of impropriety," says Henry. Another good point.
The odds say Silver will win reelection, particularly because he is facing two challengers. If that's the will of the voters downtown, so be it.
But the residents of Chinatown, the lower East Side, Battery Park City and the rest of the district need to take this race seriously and choose wisely. And they would do New York a great service by turning out at the polls in large numbers.
They will be voting - for the 19 million of us who can't - on the record of a powerful pol who has, for too long, been accountable to nobody.
Sheldon Silver's puppets must cut strings
Tuesday, May 20th 2008, 4:00 AM
Assembly Democrats hate being called lapdogs. They resent it when critics (including me) portray them as little more than puppets of Speaker Sheldon Silver, sheepishly rubber-stamping the deals he cuts with special interests.
Today, they have the chance to prove the cynics wrong.
The Assembly Judiciary Committee is scheduled to debate a no-brainer of a bill that would curb the worst excesses of New York State's trial lawyers and save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars - $164 million a year in New York City alone - in the process.
Standing in the way of reform is none other than, you guessed it, Silver. And this time, he isn't just doing the bidding of the special interests. A trial lawyer himself, in this case he is the special interest.
If members want to show they have minds and spines of their own, they'll advance a straightforward version of the long-overdue reform. If they want people like me to keep branding them as feckless, fall-in-line pols, they'll cave in to Shelly - and tack on a poison-pill amendment that effectively guarantees the measure's failure.
There's no good argument in defense of the status quo. Right now, thanks to a quirk in state law, injured government employees can sue to recover lost wages and medical expenses even when those costs are fully covered by disability and health insurance.
This ridiculous situation forces taxpayers to shell out twice - once in the form of insurance premiums, and again in payouts to workers who successfully play the lawsuit lottery.
The bill would end this double-dipping by government employees injured on the job. They'd have to play by the same rules that apply to everyone else. At a time when the city and state are desperate to save money, this is the lowest of low-hanging fruit.
A broad, bipartisan coalition sees the need for change. That includes Gov. Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, the state and city bar associations, the government watchdog group Citizens Union and representatives of virtually every local government across the state.
They speak for millions of overburdened taxpayers, sick of being bled dry by New York's bloated public sector.
Opposed are the trial lawyers, who keep up to 30% of any proceeds from double-dipping lawsuits. And Silver, who's a card-carrying member of the clan. Yep, Silver is a working trial lawyer, of counsel to Weitz & Luxenberg, a firm that does healthy business suing taxpayers.
And Silver isn't the least bit shy about using his clout to advance the interests of his fellow attorneys.
Two years ago, supporters of this same measure had lined up enough votes in the Assembly Judiciary Committee to push it through. But on the very morning of the committee meeting - in a brazen display of raw muscle - Silver summarily replaced three members. The bill died by a vote of 11 to 10.
This year, opponents are using a different tactic to derail the bill. The judiciary chairs of both houses - who also happen to be trial lawyers - are pushing to attach an amendment that would gum up the works. It would bar health insurance companies from seeking reimbursement from customers who win personal injury settlements.
That's a highly complex and controversial idea that Silver and his minions know full well is sure to go down to defeat in the Republican-led Senate.
In other words, it's guaranteed gridlock. How clever. How sad.
"This is such an example of what's wrong with Albany," says New York City Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo.
If Silver were a judge overseeing a case like this, he'd have no choice but to recuse himself. But Silver plows ahead in spite of his conflict of interest. So it's up to rank-and-file lawmakers to do what they were elected to do - represent the people, not act like lemmings.
Otherwise, we can all go back to counting sheep.
From xTracker.us
-->
