We are sorely disappointed that all too many Democratic members of the New York State Assembly have not given Speaker Sheldon Silver the benefit of the doubt over the federal criminal charges filed against him by the United States Attorney in Manhattan. They have now forced him to step down as speaker effective Monday, February 2 – without the charges against him having been proven.
Speaker Silver has been an extraordinary public servant since his election to the Assembly in 1975 and has been an exemplary leader of that body since 1994. His colleagues surely know this, having repeatedly reelected him speaker for more than two decades.
Certainly from the perspective of the Jewish community he has far and away been the most prolific American legislator in terms of authoring and passing laws protecting our religious rights. Indeed, in the course of our long experience reporting on his enormous body of work we have come to know Sheldon Silver as a man of integrity and selfless public service.
Moreover, it should be kept in mind that the law under which he has been charged – the “honest services” law, which makes it a crime for corporate executives or elected officials “to deprive another [i.e., shareholders or the public] of the intangible right of honest services” – is a particularly vague one. Indeed, it is a law that courts from the Supreme Court on down have had to take great pains to construe. Several high profile individuals who initially were convicted of violating it have had their convictions overturned on the grounds that the law did not clearly define what actions were or were not illegal.
To be sure, the charges against the speaker – that he, exercising his official authority, illegally gave preferential treatment to some in return for their referring legal cases to him – are serious. But in a landmark ruling in June 2010, the Supreme Court said that in “honest services” cases the question is whether there is compelling evidence that someone crossed the red line of the quid pro quo of bribes or kickbacks, not merely whether he or she may have received something of value from someone who wanted favors. Significantly, we will soon hear Speaker Silver’s responses to the allegations in the complaint and to the conclusions drawn by prosecutors.
The saga of Joseph Bruno, the former majority leader of the New York State Senate, is instructive. Senator Bruno was convicted under the “honest services” law when a jury found that he had concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments he received from a businessman who was looking for favorable action from the legislature. Based upon the Supreme Court “honest services” ruling, Sen. Bruno’s conviction was vacated.
Plainly, the criminal complaint will not be the last word.
And there is yet another reason why his colleagues should have been slower to react to the criminal complaint against Speaker Silver. He was charged based solely on an affidavit of an investigator working for the U.S. Attorney who investigated and drew certain conclusions as to the presence of probable cause of guilt. The charges were not based on an indictment by a 23-member grand jury, as is usually the case.
So it’s important to ignore the outrageous feeding frenzy of the tabloid press. This appears to be the beginning of a long road for Speaker Silver, a road we trust will end in his vindication. All of us should have him in our prayers. He has had our backs for almost four decades. It’s now time we had his.