Mr. Silver is survived by his wife, Rosa, and four children, Edward, Esther, Janine and Michelle.
His rise to speaker came via tragedy in 1994, when then-Speaker Saul Weprin died from complications of a stroke. Mr. Silver had been serving as interim speaker, ascending to the job with the support of other New York City Democrats, who wield profound power in the Assembly.
Making deals with the State Senate, then ruled by Republicans, required a deft negotiator, according to Joseph R. Lentol, a former Democratic Party assemblyman from Brooklyn. He said Mr. Silver played a key role in securing state money in the early 1990s to fund the hiring of police officers in the city, clean up Times Square and help spark “the renaissance of New York City.”
“He was able to work things out and make compromises with a Republican Senate and very often a Republican governor,” Mr. Lentol said, noting that Mr. Silver had served for 12 years under Gov. George E. Pataki, a three-term Republican.
In 2000, Mr. Silver faced a revolt on the Assembly floor from a faction of Democrats, many of them from upstate, who were dissatisfied with his leadership. The attempt at a coup failed, but it wounded Mr. Silver politically and made public a remarkable intraparty power struggle that would have typically played out behind closed doors in the Capitol.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/24/nyregion/sheldon-silver-dead.html
Comments