Shortly before he was sentenced on federal corruption charges in 2020, Sheldon Silver, the onetime all-powerful speaker of the New York State Assembly, sought to avoid incarceration. Disgraced, in declining health, at the end of a protracted series of appeals and retrials, he wrote a letter to the trial judge pleading for mercy: “I pray I will not die in prison,” he implored, adding that he was “broken-hearted” that his misconduct had undermined public faith in the government.
Silver almost got his wish. Last month, he died at a community hospital in Massachusetts but was still in federal custody, having recently been moved there from the nearby Devens Federal Medical Center. The cause of death was undisclosed, but he had a history of cancer and kidney disease and was three weeks short of his 78th birthday.
It’s tempting to describe the trajectory of Silver’s irresistible rise and dramatic fall as tragedy. But it’s not quite accurate. Certainly, the contrast between his life’s promise and performance informed the equivocal reflections on his death. Former Republican Gov. George Pataki observed politely that “for all our many disagreements and battles, it’s a sad day and stark reminder that integrity in public service matters.” A fellow Democratic assemblyman, Richard Gottlieb, struck a more defiant note: “Shelly Silver was one of the strongest voices for progressive issues in the New York State Legislature,” he declared, citing his stalwart support for abortion rights, the minimum wage, gay marriage, gun control, and, above all, the interests of his Manhattan constituents.
For all his liberal credentials, however, Silver was very much a product and practitioner of an old-fashioned brand of politics. The son of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was born and raised on the Lower East Side, where he excelled at basketball on the public courts and played in high school. Apart from intervals in Albany and imprisonment, Silver spent his entire life living within hailing distance of his birthplace.
He studied at Yeshiva University, earned a degree at Brooklyn Law School, and lost his first race in the Democratic primary for city council. But he was elected to the Assembly in 1976, defeating an incumbent Republican. As an assemblyman, he rose quietly in the ranks, sponsoring bills that, in the words of the New York Times, “reflected his legislative savvy and his religious faith,” including one measure enabling Jewish women to remarry without requiring a religious divorce decree and another outlawing autopsies “when the procedure was contrary to religious belief.” He also retained his partnership in a personal injury law firm.
When Speaker Saul Weprin died suddenly in 1994, Silver’s skills brokering deals, garnering votes, and negotiating with a Senate controlled by Republicans made him the consensus choice as Weprin’s successor. His stern, undemonstrative, close-to-the-chest style was suited to an era of pitched partisan warfare and power divided among “three men in a room” — governor, Assembly speaker, and Senate leader.
Indeed, so decisive was Silver’s control and discretion that his personal power grew nearly absolute. He directed huge sums to police and fire departments and toward New York City’s revival in the 1990s and post-9/11. He scuttled Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal for a football stadium on Manhattan’s West Side. In 2000, a brief revolt among upstate Democrats against his leadership was quickly and easily put down.
But Silver’s inscrutable methods also concealed conflicts of interest with his law firm, cash in exchange for favors to developers, and multiple instances of influence-peddling. The dam broke in January 2015 when he was arrested and indicted in Albany on various charges, including a scheme that directed state funds to a Columbia University researcher in asbestos-related disease in exchange for patient referrals to Silver’s law firm. When patients won multimillion-dollar settlements from his firm’s lawsuits, Silver accumulated nearly $4 million in “referral fees.”
He resigned as speaker one month later, was convicted in November, and after five years of appeals, reversals, and retrials, Silver was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison, of which he served nearly two.
Philip Terzian is the author of Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century.
