At
the very least, advocates predicted, the verdict could have a chilling
effect on legislators, who might previously have embraced tacit
quid-pro-quo arrangements of the kind that led to Mr. Silver’s
conviction.
Attorney
General Eric T. Schneiderman, who campaigned for stringent ethics
legislation earlier this year, said that a stark choice confronted
Albany.
“There
are only two paths forward,” Mr. Schneiderman said in a statement.
“More scandals, more prosecutions and the further erosion of public
confidence; or real, transformational reform that deters and actually
prevents corruption in the first place.”
The New York Public Interest Research Group called on Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo to convene a special session of the Legislature dedicated to ethics reform.
Mr. Cuomo said late Monday that “justice was served.”
“With
the allegations proven, it is time for the Legislature to take
seriously the need for reform,” he said in a statement. “There will be
zero tolerance for the violation of the public trust in New York.”
The
pressure for new action on ethics may only increase in the coming
months: Political strategists in both parties expect government
corruption to be a major electoral issue in 2016, when control of the
State Senate is up for grabs.
Dean
G. Skelos, the former Republican leader of the State Senate, and his
son, Adam, are currently on trial on corruption charges, in a case that
experts consider more straightforward than the one against Mr. Silver, a
Democrat.
A guilty verdict against Mr. Skelos would add to the anti-Albany drumbeat heading into the election year.
For
Mr. Silver’s Assembly colleagues, the verdict was almost surreal in its
finality. His indictment in January exposed an ethical lapse in Mr.
Silver’s handling of the speakership, but more than a few privately
doubted that he had done anything illegal. In the final days of the
trial, lawmakers mused about how Mr. Silver might seek to wield power in
Albany again, should he be exonerated.
Mr.
Silver himself seemed to exude a subdued confidence throughout the
proceedings, repeatedly telling reporters that his name would be cleared
in the end.
Assemblyman
Joseph R. Lentol, the longtime Brooklyn Democrat and colleague of Mr.
Silver, expressed dismay at the verdict — “It’s a sad day” — saying he
had initially believed that the speaker’s behavior, while unpalatable,
was not necessarily criminal.
But
on Monday, as Mr. Silver’s name was scrubbed from the Assembly website
and removed from his office door, the reality of a Silver-less Assembly
had seemingly dawned. Mr. Lentol called it a “body blow” to Albany’s
lower chamber.
“It
hurts all of us,” Mr. Lentol said, adding, “I still feel it is a noble
profession that I practice and, when it’s done correctly, it’s a reward
all unto itself.”
Mr.
Lentol also said he believed the verdict would increase pressure for
campaign finance reform, an idea he said he supported, though he
admitted it would be a challenge to correct the system. “Money seems to
be the root of all of the evil in politics,” he said.
Even
before the trial, Mr. Silver’s name was synonymous with a system of
state government that is widely seen as defined by secrecy and awash in
lightly regulated money.
But
that system has survived stiff challenges before, including a drive for
ethics reform this year, in the aftermath of back-to-back corruption
indictments against Mr. Silver and Mr. Skelos.
That
push encountered powerful resistance, and produced only incremental new
ethics laws that enhanced some forms of financial disclosure for
lawmakers taking outside income.
More
junior members of the Assembly suggested that Mr. Silver’s conviction
would give those efforts more momentum. Assemblyman Todd Kaminsky, a
freshman Democrat from Long Island and former federal corruption
prosecutor, framed the conviction as a call to arms, saying “serious,
swift action must be taken.”
“The
bell could not be ringing louder for real reform in Albany than it is
right now,” said Mr. Kaminsky, who is viewed as a potential candidate
for Mr. Skelos’s Senate seat.
Michael
Blake, a freshman Democrat from the Bronx and one of a group of younger
members who had seized on Mr. Silver’s ouster as a transformative
moment for the Assembly, said that justice was “definitely served” on
Monday.
Mr. Silver’s conviction, he said, should be the next step in Albany’s evolution toward a less fetid Legislature.
“There’s an opportunity that’s there now for a new direction,” he said.
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