Citizens union sticks finger in Silver’s eye
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- August
- 28
 Only 10 days ago scores of lobbyists forked over thousands of dollars to try to curry favor with Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Today Citizens’ Union, a community group, figuratively stuck a finger in his eye.
The group announced it was not supporting Silver in a three-way primary to keep his seat on Sept. 9.
Silver has failed to “embrace and advance a broader agenda of reform issues,’’ like non-partisan redistricting and tougher rules against conflicts of interest, the group said in a release.
Silver is facing two opponents in the Democratic primary, Paul Newell and Luke Henry, neither of whom is viewed as a serious threat to the Legislature’s most powerful Democrat.
On Aug. 18, virtually every big Albany lobbying firm and public-employee union spent thousands to participate in Silver’s “21st Annual Speaker’sCup’’ fund-raising golf tournament at the Whippoorwill Country Club in Armonk, Westchester County.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, August 28th, 2008 at 5:00 pm by Jay Gallagher.
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Jay Gallagher has covered Albany for Gannett News Service since 1984 and has been Albany Bureau chief since 1989. He`s a native of the Boston area and likes to point out that in this millennium, the score is Red Sox 1 championship, the Yankees 0. 
Cara Matthews has been a statehouse correspondent in the Albany Bureau since August 2005. Prior to that, she covered Putnam County government and politics at The Journal News for nearly five years. Before that, she worked at newspapers in Connecticut and covered the state Legislature for one of them. 
