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| Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times |
NY TIMES
Moving to exile one of New York’s most powerful and long-serving leaders, Democrats in the State Assembly agreed late on Monday to ask Sheldon Silver to step down as speaker in the wake of his arrest last week on federal corruption charges.
The Democrats reached the decision in a closed-door meeting that stretched for hours, rebuffing a bid by Mr. Silver to keep his post by relinquishing some of his responsibilities while he defended himself against the charges.
“He should understand that he’s lost the confidence of a majority of our conference,” Assemblyman Brian Kavanagh, a Manhattan Democrat, said after the meeting.
On Monday night, the Assembly majority leader, Joseph D. Morelle, a Democrat from the Rochester area, went into Mr. Silver’s office to tell the speaker of his colleagues’ feelings, other Democratic members of the Assembly said. They gave him until Tuesday to make a decision on whether to step down, or risk being ousted from his position.
Leaving the Capitol just before midnight, Mr. Silver told reporters that he had not told anyone that he was resigning, and that he would meet with his Democratic colleagues on Tuesday.
The move by the Democratic conference became clear after a five-hour private meeting in the Capitol, which ended around 10 p.m.
The meeting he left behind was somber, members said, and their eventual decision, after several hours, was that Mr. Silver’s ability to run the chamber had been irreparably compromised by his arrest.
Several members said Mr. Silver was being presented with the Democratic conference’s opinion that he could no longer serve as speaker,... One conceivable possibility, members said, was that Mr. Silver could return to his position as speaker if he were acquitted of the federal charges.
Earlier in the day, pressure had been building on Mr. Silver on a number of fronts. More than 20 Assembly Democrats called for Mr. Silver to step down or appeared poised to do so, and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, also a Democrat, said it would be a “good thing” if a replacement for Mr. Silver were to take charge in the Assembly.
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| (Credit: Charles Eckert) |
Mr. Cuomo did not explicitly call for Mr. Silver to leave his post, but raised concerns about how his arrest could affect state government....In a setback to Mr. Silver, Mr. Cuomo criticized a plan that the speaker had formulated on Sunday in which he would retain his title, but temporarily relinquish some important duties to five other members, including the responsibility to negotiate the state budget, which must be finished by April 1. “Management by committee I’ve never been a fan of, and I’ve never seen it work well,” Mr. Cuomo said, adding, “From my own selfish point of view, I don’t understand how you negotiate with a committee.”
Many Assembly Democrats had similar concerns with the plan. Some voiced doubts that the power-sharing agreement would be efficient or effective in budget negotiations. Others said the structure itself was simply a way for Mr. Silver to retain power while appearing to step back from his duties.
The atmosphere at the Capitol was tense as lawmakers huddled to discuss the leadership crisis and considered what only days ago seemed unthinkable, the prospect of Mr. Silver’s ouster.
In a bid to save his job, Mr. Silver planned to present his power-sharing proposal to his fellow Democrats when they met behind closed doors. The meeting was delayed, and as the day went on, Mr. Silver’s proposal, and with it his speakership, appeared on the verge of collapse.