The arrest today of Sheldon Silver, the speaker of New York’s State Assembly, on federal corruption charges created what could well be described as an earthquake in New York politics. Silver has ruled over the state’s lower house for 20 years and wielded great power in Albany. But his fall from grace is about more than the tale of one crooked politician and the crumbling network of legal, political, and social service connections that he presided over. Accused grafters like Shelly Silver can be found throughout our nation’s political history and, indeed, that of any democratic country. Crooks like him are a dime a dozen. But what made him significant was not just his venality and fast and loose approach to ethics. He was dangerous because his decades of thievery were enabled by a political culture that treated such things as being of no consequence.
That Silver is accused of raking in millions in bribes and kickbacks from those doing business with the state does not come as a great shock to those who have followed his career. His rise from an undistinguished lawyer and local political hack with close ties to Heshy Jacob—a prominent povertician on Manhattan’s Lower East Side—to a political giant brought him great wealth and far-reaching influence within the state’s business, legal, and political worlds. Moreover the sentencing last year of William Rapfogel, the husband of Silver’s chief of staff Judy Rapfogel, on charges relating to the looting of one of the city’s leading Jewish social welfare agencies made it impossible to avoid the possibility that the thread of corruption would eventually lead to the uncovering of even greater crimes by the speaker of the Assembly.
Silver’s shakedowns poured millions into the coffers of law firms with which he was associated but they were also ill concealed. How a part-time lawyer (members of the New York legislature work part time and, unlike members of Congress, may be active in the legal profession) that did not appear to work on any cases could become a wealthy partner in a law firm specializing in personal injury cases was a mystery that was always treated as one to which the answer was known to any politically aware person in New York City or Albany.
But somehow this open secret was never considered worth looking into by legal authorities. Neither crusading state attorney generals like Eliot Spitzer or Andrew Cuomo (both of whom used that office as a stepping stone to the governorship) or tough guy district attorneys ever managed to find the time or the resources to pursue Silver. Why would they when doing so when put them in opposition to a powerful man who could make their political lives miserable? In the go-along-to-get-along world of New York politics, picking a fight with Shelly was never a good business proposition. In the end, it took a federal prosecutor to unravel this tawdry case.
But instead of just cheering the determination of U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, it is also an apt moment to think back on a political tempest that came and went with no political repercussions last year.
It should be recalled that Governor Cuomo belatedly responded to concerns about Albany’s tradition of thievery by creating a special panel known as the Moreland Commission to root out corruption. But as soon as it started to make some noises about actually doing just that—as opposed to merely talking about it as almost all past anti-corruption efforts had done—Cuomo disbanded it, as Bharara said, “to the great relief” of Silver. But a culture of tolerance for corruption—something that Silver used to his advantage for years—ensured that the governor suffered no political consequences for this outrageous act. Silver made deals with Albany Republicans who made no trouble for him. But in a one-party state like New York, the usual checks and balances of a democracy in which a credible opposition can make the party in power pay for its sins simply don’t exist.
That is why as troubling as the tale of Silver’s alleged misdeeds may be, unless accountability is brought into the picture it is a given that there will be more Shelly Silvers in New York’s future. A leviathan-like state government such as the one that operates in New York is awash in money and contracts that are an open invitation to looters and grafters. But until the state’s political culture becomes one where indifference to corruption can bring a new party and reform to power, criminals will continue to prosper at the taxpayers’ expense.
