Reporters caught up with State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver in Albany yesterday, quizzing him on a variety of subjects. In spite of new reports to the contrary, he said Assembly Democrats are not seeking to make property tax relief contingent on the passage on legislation to extend and strengthen rent regulation.
Asked whether he was concerned about his own safety following the Arizona shootings, Silver indicated it would be prudent for both the media and elected officials to dial back the overheated rhetoric that has dominated American politics in recent years.
Later in the day, Silver met at the Executive Mansion with Governor Andrew Cuomo and Senate majority Leader Dean Skelos.
The Times has an amusing account of the scene outside the mansion after the meeting ended:
Mr. Cuomo and Mr. Silver emerged from the mansion. The governor walked the speaker to his car, and the two men shook hands in a very camera-friendly manner before getting into their vehicles. The governor left the mansion first. Sitting in the passenger seat of a black S.U.V., Mr. Cuomo did not roll down his window. He simply waved at the reporters who had camped out in wait for him. Mr. Silver, who drove himself, followed the governor and stopped where the reporters had gathered. But in doing so, his car blocked Mr. Cuomo’s entourage, in another black S.U.V., from following the governor out of the driveway, and a state trooper quickly beckoned him to keep driving. “I’ll get a ticket for disobeying an officer,” Mr. Silver fretted, as reporters thrust microphones in the window of his sedan. “He wants me to go.” Asked what he thought of the lunch, Mr. Silver said simply that it was “wonderful.” But he did have one complaint. “They served too much,” he said.
