Talk:Sheldon Silver

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This page needed considerable cleaning up. Sorry - I'm still a bit of a newbie at Wikipedia, but I *have read* and *do understand* issues like NPOV and avoiding weasel-phrases.

So, I'm cleaning up some of these issues, and I started this talk page. Never done the latter before, so apologies if I'm screwing up (I've made a note to look into how to do them -- and I mean well -- so anyone who flames me for it, please send me your phone number and we'll chat. >;-)

Some of the assertions were just plain biased (and I'll mention I'm a centrist, politically, from the entire other end of the country). It was laughable that Silver was portrayed as some sort of lone Democrat counterweight to the crushing power of the Republican Party in NY State -- today's (2/4/06) NY Times has an article referring to NY as a Democratic stronghold, as one tiny example.

Silver was not portrayed as the lone Democratic counterweight "to the crushing power of the Republican Party in NY State." He was simply portrayed as the counterweight in the state government, which he essentially is. I'd personally argue the Republicans are less powerful than the Democrats in the state overall, but the fact is that Republicans control the Governorship (at least for now) and they control one half of the Legislature (and probably will for a while). They are not toothless in the least, and even if they lose the Governor's desk this year, they will not be toothless.

I reworded the offending paragraph, but put it back more or less in its original form. The point about Silver being (as originally worded "by default") the lone counterweight is kind of a segway into some of the criticism section. It's also just how New York State politics have worked for decades, and hardly a problem unique to Silver; indeed, if the governor were a Democrat, Joseph Bruno would by default become the lone counterweight to Democratic power in the lawmaking process. Anyway, I looked at the old wording and can see where it's confusing (that may be my fault), but the idea behind it was more or less factually correct (the terms 'legislature' and 'assembly' were mixed up in one place). Bolwerk 17:35, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the section of criticism that was comprised of unverifiable information about Silvers defense of housing and rent subsidies. This section was nothing more than a partisan attack of the politician being discussed. Serviusx 01:16, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

External Link question. Does anyone else have trouble seeing this link just to the right of the colon here: Speaker Silver's New York State Assembly Page (link is before this parenthetical comment)? It is invisible in my Firefox and I don't know why. Help? - Corporal Tunnel 15:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Belated thanks. The points above seem to have been addressed. —Patrug (talk) 08:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Acting Lt. Gov. Silver

The apealate injunction preventing Espada from becoming Temporary Senate President does not place Sen. Smith into the role of Temp. President, therefore Speaker Silver is, atleast until midday tomorrow the Acting Luitenent Governor of New York.--Rljackson67 (talk) 03:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I edited the section referring to acting Lt. governor, if it were true he would hold the power to break ties in the Senate which he does not. ( I think, if he did we would be in less of a mess) He is, however next in the line of succession. 74.70.204.170 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:03, 6 July 2009 (UTC).

Belated thanks. The points above seem to have been addressed. —Patrug (talk) 08:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Update

This page needs to be updated by a knowledgable source. Spitizer has resigned; with the chaos in the State Senate in 2009 and the precieved void of leadership by Paterson, Silver was said to be the only one of the Big Three in Albany to command influencee according to a NY Times article of 2010; Cuomo became governor and has steadily isolated Silver and stripped him of power by triangulating with the Republican Senate and allying with Joe Morelle, formerly a close Silver ally. And of course the Lopez sexual harrassment debacle, which is the most notable of all these events. 74.69.8.195 (talk) 14:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Belated thanks. The points above seem to have been addressed. —Patrug (talk) 08:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Criticism

POV issues in criticism section

Criticism section needs to be re-written in NPOV. Tag added for now. I.am.a.qwerty (talk) 18:55, 3 April 2014 (UTC)

I.am.a.qwerty, I do not see what is NPOV - particularly no weasel words, you should flag them, else I will take the flag down.--Wuerzele (talk) 03:09, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Belated thanks. The points above seem to have been addressed. —Patrug (talk) 08:13, 15 February 2015 (UTC)

Criticism and reliable media coverage

This deletion https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sheldon_Silver&diff=601346878&oldid=595550369 eddy212 (talk | contribs) (Out of date, irrelevant)

Silver has long been criticized for his employment with Weitz & Luxenberg, one of the state's larger litigation firms. This has led some to accuse Silver of having a conflict of interest, as he has consistently blocked medical malpractice and other tort reform in Albany. Weitz & Luxenberg insists that Silver's ties with the firm are "negligible" but Silver has refused to disclose the details of his employment or the salary he receives from the law firm.

turns out to be not irrelevant after all, since according to the NYT Silver is going to be arrested for his unexplained income from law firms, possibly including Weitz. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/22/nyregion/sheldon-silver-new-york-assembly-speaker-faces-arrest-on-corruption-charges.html?emc=edit_na_20150122&nlid=52068085

I don't see anything here about Silver's connection to the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty either. There was a lot of media coverage about that.

For the benefit of editors who are new to Wikipedia, I would suggest that you read WP:RS. Basically, if you want to say something about Silver, you have to quote a reliable source, such as a newspaper. If you don't include a reliable source, it will be quickly deleted. OTOH, if you can find several reliable sources that say the same thing, it will not be deleted. If it's true, it's pretty easy to find reliable sources with a Google search.

--Nbauman (talk) 11:49, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Belated thanks. The Sheldon Silver article appropriately discusses those payments from law firms, and the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty article appropriately mentions its connection to Silver, but the Met Council probably doesn't have sufficient weight in the context of Silver's long career to include in his bio article. The info is reliably sourced; it just seems to fall short of the WP:BALASPS policy, cited below in the subsection "Balancing aspects". —Patrug (talk) 22:21, 28 June 2016 (UTC)

Unfair "Criticism" section commonly seen on Religious Jew's BLP

As I saw in other articles on Religious Jews - This article was packed up and dominated with long criticism sections. I looked at other major controversial NY politicians like Governor Andrew Cuomo, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and others and did not see any such sort of sections - despite the widely available sources for criticism.

Arrest: By other prominent religious Jews and institutions - after the POV hateful articles came the prosecutors and began arresting. Take a look at Agriprocessors article how it showed up in April 2008. The article was built on POV hate and (I repeat POV hate and WP:ATTACK style), and then in May of 2008 came the Postville Raid which resulted in 27 years jail sentence for the Religious Jewish CEO. If Preet Bharara was really interested - he could look through the bank accounts and documents of many politicians and get them locked up - but he picks and chooses. Caseeart (talk) 08:39, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I see no basis for accusing that article of "POV hate" – the criticism was based on multiple crimes, not the religion of the executive. Generally speaking, as long as criminal indictments and criticism sections are reliably sourced, the information should stay in Wikipedia. Please feel free to add reliably sourced criticisms to the biographies of New York's many non-Jewish scoundrels. We have plenty of them, and Bharara certainly hasn't finished! —Patrug (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

• The Agriprocessors example article had only 3 sections: "Animal abuse controversy","Recent developments"(about under-processed franks), and "Pollution". Not a single section about the plant itself. No one bothered. The Largest Kosher meat plant in the world could have at least one section about the plant. To me that seems like a hate article against agriprocessors. But that is just one example.
• While majority users try to fairly balance articles - there are many users that I came through that exclusively dump criticism on articles of religious Jews. I saw users that go from one article to another posting defamatory information. Though many times the defamatory information is properly sourced - it creates a non balanced article with majority criticism (just as you pointed out later in this talk page).
• There are so many corporations committing far larger crimes - and few people know or care. You could have 2 politicians creating identical crimes - the one that is a religious Jew is more likely to get prosecuted simply because the non Jew goes un-noticed and few people care to defame them.
• Regarding Bharara - a prosecutor should prosecute based on areas of high crime statistics (-like police-), not based on articles they read (or on race). Caseeart (talk) 08:38, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Your POV has been noted. The Agriprocessors article that you linked had 4 sections of text, not 3 — and the very first, lead section highlighted the mostly positive information about the kosher meat plant that you said was entirely omitted. I don't want to debate every example article from years ago that you consider imbalanced — but I would strongly encourage you to cite & quote the policy WP:BALASPS as I did below, on the Talk page of any current article where you truly think the policy is being violated. And if you find specific editors currently violating policy across multiple articles, it would be appropriate to seek help from WP:DRN. You're most likely to succeed by emphasizing the policy, not religious victimization. It's pretty clear that for just about every ethnic group, the New York State Capitol richly deserves to be prosecuted as "an area of high crime statistics". —Patrug (talk) 13:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The article had only 3 sections all WP:ATTACK style. There was also a lead that had 1 positive sentence but followed by another allegation against the plant. Rather than discussing the plant - the editors were busy dumping attacks. Caseeart (talk) 17:13, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

We disagree on this. I don't think it's appropriate to accuse editors of religious hatred for summarizing chronic abuse of employees, children, animals, and the environment — and if you're still upset about edits from 7 years ago that have long since been updated, it might be time to let it go. Please, let's stay focused on making constructive improvements to the current Sheldon Silver article, OK? I re-arranged some text so that it no longer has a separate Criticism section, as discussed below. If you still think there's too little "positive" information, just start adding some yourself. That's the way Wikipedia works! —Patrug (talk) 13:25, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

We definitely disagree on this and you are right that we should focus in the "current Sheldon Silver article". I want to just point out that that was one single example of the countless articles but forget it for now.Caseeart (talk) 02:35, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Balancing aspects

Beyond the specific points discussed above, we should also keep in mind the policy WP:BALASPS:

"An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to the weight of that aspect in the body of reliable sources on the subject. For example, discussion of isolated events, criticisms, or news reports about a subject may be verifiable and impartial, but still disproportionate to their overall significance to the article topic. This is a concern especially in relation to recent events that may be in the news."

In that spirit, I've just deleted a few Sheldon Silver paragraphs that merely presented ordinary disagreements between two people. Viewing them in the context of Silver's long career encompassing many serious issues of policy and law, I think we can safely skip the smaller personal disputes.—Patrug (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2015 (UTC)

More WP policy questions

I did not get a chance to look into the article and the sources about silvers 20 year career as speaker.

However I noticed that you added criticism information (in the allegations against sliver) from watchdog.org. I was wondering if that website and it's author pass the WP:LIVE policy that states "Be very firm about the use of high-quality sources."

Also, the criticism that you (and many other users) added how does the wording adhere with the WP:BLPCRIME policy.

A person accused of a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty and convicted by a court of law. For relatively unknown people, editors must seriously consider not including material in any article suggesting that the person has committed, or is accused of committing, a crime unless a conviction is secured.

I understand that the subject is a well know person but you also added allegations against an awkward fact about Silver's children who were not convicted (and never even charged). I don't know if this adheres to the policy. Caseeart (talk) 09:21, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Good questions...

Watchdog.org, from the multi-award-winning Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, should indeed qualify as a high-quality source of information. I used it as a convenient citation for 3 specific facts (not "criticism"), which Watchdog in turn cited from government documents & NY Times & NY Post — and nobody seriously questions those basic facts about those individuals. Feel free to replace my Watchdog citation with those 3 separate refs if you like, but I don't think it should be necessary.

Thanks for the reminder about WP:BLPCRIME — though you omitted a crucial footnote:

"WP:BLPCRIME applies to low-profile individuals and not to well-known individuals, in whose cases WP:WELLKNOWN is the appropriate policy to follow."

Following WP:WELLKNOWN, I just expanded the article by prominently incorporating Silver's denial of the charges against him. I think everything else about him is ok in the article ("If an allegation or incident is noteworthy, relevant, and well documented, it belongs in the article") — with no shortage of reliable sources available for anyone who wants to verify the content.

As for his children, Wikipedia's Sheldon Silver article unquestioningly asserted for the past 10 years that they live a few blocks from him. I think it's only fair for the article to say that their voting addresses have been questioned (this is an established fact, not an allegation or an accusation of a crime), along with providing a reliable citation for Silver's defense of the legality, and how he would "famously use the minutiae of the state’s election law to his advantage, scrutinizing and challenging nominating petitions to the letter to bounce potential rivals." As an alternative, the Wikipedia article could avoid any mention of the closeness of his family — but I think the information legitimately improves the reader's understanding of Silver, without saying anything unfair about his children.

Hope this helps a bit. —Patrug (talk) 13:59, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

The allegations fact you added against his children, who are relatively unknown persons, does not seem to to adhere to the WP:BLPCRIME in relation to the children, since they were never charged or convicted. Per WP BLP policy I will remove this until it could be proved that it adheres to policy. (if consensus is reached - it might also be balanced to add that he won primary with 7037 votes vs 2401 votes and won general election with 27,632 votes to 7,387 votes, so the allegation of his children changing their addresses to give him a few votes is awkward as you mentioned).

I had added a simple fact to the article, not allegations. (For the sake of civility, please stop mischaracterizing reliably verified and objective facts as "allegations" or "criticisms" when they are not.) I'm fine with the alternative of omitting the information from the article along with the Manhattan voting addresses — not because these adult children were unknown innocents, but because the District Attorney decided the issue wasn't significant enough to pursue charges. —Patrug (talk) 13:25, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

I do think that some of your recent contributions were constructive and making the article more balanced, and I thank you for that. Caseeart (talk) 18:01, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

Your reorganization was helpful, too, and I just extended it further, to eliminate the stand-alone Criticism section and integrate its content into the Law Career and Speaker sections, as recommended by WP:CRIT. I think it improves the balance throughout the article, and hope you'll be pleased. Further improvements welcome. —Patrug (talk) 13:25, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Your last edit does appear to create a more neutral article.

I slightly reworded the text in order to attribute the New York Post's opinion to it's author per Telling the difference between facts and opinions policy which states "Any source can be a reliable source for its own opinion" Caseeart (talk) 05:42, 24 February 2015 (UTC).

Lengthy disputable opinion from a relatively unknown newspaper

Before placing this opinion we would need to see what other highly qualified authors say. We would need to bring all opinions and see if this is a minority opinion.

In addition, it gives undue weight since it is too lengthy and sounds like POV Pushing.

I would support removing it unless/until proven otherwise/corrected. Caseeart (talk) 05:51, 24 February 2015 (UTC)

You must be referring to the quote from The Buffalo News. The same thoughts have also been published regularly by major newspapers throughout New York State, almost a unanimous consensus, so I've added them to the article. A multi-Pulitzer-winning upstate newspaper is a good representative source for summarizing a mutiny by upstate officeholders, and it's not undue weight for this Wikipedia article to give it 5 out of 64 sentences. If anything, the article should include even more discussion of the "Three Men in a Room" system that fosters so much of Albany's corruption. —Patrug (talk) 03:53, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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External links modified

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Reason for overturning conviction

I'd been meaning to add a sentence giving the appeals court's rationale for overturning Silver's 2015 conviction on July 13, 2017. However I can't figure it out. According to the ruling, "The District Court’s instructions on honest services fraud and extortion do not comport with McDonnell and are therefore in error," adding that the jury must be "properly instructed, as is required by the law for the verdict to stand." (See also this NYT article.)

What I don't understand here is the legal meaning of "properly instructed". What was "improper" about the District Court's 2015 instructions at the time? Was there some precedent justifying McDonnell's narrowing of "official services" that the District Court should have known about, as distinct from an arbitrary decision in 2016 that no one could reasonably have predicted in 2015? If not then I don't understand the sense in which an "error" was made in the jury instructions, other perhaps than in the sense that if you bet on the favorite at very short odds and it unexpectedly stumbles near the finish then in hindsight you were "in error". Vaughan Pratt (talk) 22:50, 22 July 2017 (UTC)