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Sheldon Silver is the leader of "The People’s House of the Legislature," and is the longest serving Democratic speaker in the history of the New York State Assembly. First elected in 1976 to represent the Lower Manhattan community where he was born, raised and continues to reside, Silver and the members of the Assembly have forged an impressive legacy of progressive political leadership, intelligent government reform, social justice, and advocacy for working families. With Silver at its helm, the Assembly has distinguished itself as a constant, steadying hand helping to guide the state through political upheaval, the most damaging economic crisis in a generation, and the worst terrorist attack on American soil in the nation’s history.

Leading the People’s House

Upon his election as Speaker in 1994, Silver immediately acted to ensure that the Assembly would be an independent, member-driven governing body committed to both openness and transparency, and to reflecting the immigrant heritage and the diversity of the Empire State. Thanks to Silver’s commitment, the Assembly is guided by the most diverse leadership team in the history of the Body and in the nation today, and the Assembly Chamber is safer and more accessible than ever before to people with disabilities. He also led the charge to televise legislative proceedings, providing greater access to the public. At the Speaker’s insistence, the Assembly has strengthened its ethics requirements and adopted numerous reforms to house rules in order to improve transparency and member participation.

Ensuring a Brighter Future for New York State’s Children

Education is the hallmark of Silver’s legacy as Speaker. He and the Members of the Assembly are committed to the principle and are working continuously to ensure that every child receives a sound, basic education. To that end, Silver directed the Assembly effort that established "foundation aid," which provides school districts with a predictable, stable and equitable source of aid.

The New York State Assembly established the first pre-kindergarten program for all four-year-olds in the nation through the LADDER (Learning, Achieving, Developing By Directing Educational) program. Thanks to Silver’s leadership, state funding to New York City schools was increased by more than $1 billion. He established a School Overcrowding Task Force in Lower Manhattan that has successfully opened two new schools and continues to push for more.

In 2010, the Assembly passed landmark reforms that improve teacher evaluations by bringing more accountability to the classroom. These innovative measures were key in winning hundreds of millions of dollars in education aide as part of President Obama’s Race to the Top competition, which recognized New York as one of the nation’s leaders in education reform.

Silver also led the Assembly’s passage of the EXCEL (Expanding our Children’s Education and Learning) program, which funds education technology and projects to improve school health and safety, reduce energy consumption, and expand school facilities. Silver is also a principal architect of the nationally recognized school governance system in the City of New York.

Keeping Open the Doors to Higher Education

Under the leadership of Speaker Silver, the Assembly has been a steadfast supporter of post-secondary education, and of the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY).

Since his ascendance to the office of Speaker, the Assembly has restored and/or provided hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for operating aid and billions of dollars in capital investments to maintain and expand the state’s public colleges and universities. He has also helped to ensure continued support for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), which helps students afford college.

Creating Jobs and Building the 21st Century Economy

Speaker Silver and the Members of the Assembly are committed to increasing employment throughout New York State and to rebuilding the upstate economy by utilizing the state’s outstanding public colleges, universities and community colleges as the engines for job creation. At his direction, the Assembly advanced a regionally based economic development strategy that brings together the state’s institutions of higher learning with industry to support innovation, to commercialize new technologies, to incubate new businesses, to help manufacturers modernize operations, and to train the workforce of the 21st Century.

The strategy includes targeted tax credits, such as the Qualified Emerging Technology Tax Credit, as well as infrastructure investments to spur job creation and to attract new business. As part of this strategy, Silver authorized the first commitment of state funds that launched the University at Albany’s rise to global leadership in nanotechnology and established it as the largest, most state-of-the-art, high-tech complex in the academic world. In 2009, Silver and the Assembly brought the SUNY Institute of Technology into this high-tech partnership, helping to extend the nanotech industry and bring nanotech jobs into New York’s Mohawk Valley.

In support of this economic strategy, the Assembly initiated the Power for Jobs program to provide low cost energy to businesses; the Empire Zones program and Empire Zone reform to create virtually tax-free environments to spur job growth in hard-pressed areas of the state; the RESTORE communities initiative – a highly successful capital program intended to attack urban blight; the CAPCO program to provide venture capital for start-up technology companies; and the Innovate NY Fund to enable our state to distribute federal dollars to be invested in New York based, seed-stage companies that have substantial potential for growth and job development in an emerging technology field.

Improving Access to Quality Health Care

Throughout his tenure, Speaker Silver has demonstrated an unflinching commitment to public health. He has led the Assembly’s continuous efforts to ensure that the working poor, children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and immigrant populations receive the health services they need. Silver has been at the forefront of the more-than-decade-long Assembly fight that has restored billions of dollars in proposed cuts to the hospital, nursing home, pharmacy, and home care sectors of the state’s health and mental health care system

He passed legislation giving the state the ability to reject unreasonable increases in annual health care premiums and mandating coverage for autism spectrum disorders. Silver also successfully fought for passage of the Clinic Access and Anti-Stalking Act, which ensures women access to reproductive services and cracks down on violence against clinic workers. The Assembly also passed legislation that drastically reduces sulfur in heating oil, helping to fight the scourge of asthma.

The Assembly expanded the Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage program (EPIC); advanced the Family Health Plus program to provide health coverage to the state’s uninsured; and worked successfully to expand the Child Health Plus Program (CHIP) so that all of the state’s uninsured children would be eligible for health coverage.

At Silver’s direction, the Assembly has consistently provided support for Graduate Medical Education, for community health centers, for the AIDS Institute, and for non-AIDS related health services for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender communities.

In 2002, Speaker Silver’s persistence resulted in passage of the Women’s Health and Wellness Act, which has given millions of women across the state expanded insurance coverage for contraceptives and for the prevention, early detection and treatment of breast cancer, cervical cancer and osteoporosis. That year also marked a victory in Silver’s successful fight to require health insurers to cover prescription drugs and certain surgical procedures related to the treatment of infertility. In 2003, Silver joined the late Christopher Reeve in announcing Assembly passage of The Reproductive Cloning Prohibition and Research Protection Act – the state’s first legislation authorizing scientific activities relating to therapeutic cloning and stem cell research.

In 2009, with Silver’s leadership, the Assembly helped to craft and to pass the Managed Care Bill of Rights and additional reforms to protect the rights of health care consumers and providers, and made permanent "Timothy’s Law," to end health insurer discrimination in covering mental health care.

Meeting More of the Needs of Working Families

Silver has long been committed to helping New York’s working families keep pace with an ever changing economy. In 2012, Silver led the passage of a bill that would increase the state’s minimum wage for the first time in years. Also that year, Silver revived the state sales tax exemption on clothing and footwear under $110. He also pushed through an overhaul of the state’s income tax code, increasing rates for millionaires while cutting taxes for working and middle-class New Yorkers.

Silver continues to drive the Assembly’s ongoing efforts to increase daycare slots and to provide greater funding for all-day kindergarten and after school programs. He is credited with state passage of the Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities (NORC) program, which enables senior citizens to receive health and social services where they live. As part of the historic 2007 workers’ compensation reforms, the Silver-led Assembly not only achieved a significant benefits increase for injured workers, it ensured that the maximum benefit rate would be indexed, never again requiring action by the Legislature or the Governor.

With his leadership, the Assembly has emerged as the undisputed champion of tenants’ rights and affordable housing. In 2011, rent regulations were strengthened for the first time in decades, increasing protections for over a million apartments in New York City. The Assembly has also pursued an ambitious agenda aimed at ending vacancy decontrol, repealing the Urstadt Law, preserving Mitchell- Lama and Section 8 housing, and increasing penalties imposed on landlords who harass tenants. In 2010, under Silver’s leadership, the city’s loft law was made permanent, guaranteeing crucial protections for loft residents in New York City.

When it became clear that the nation was facing a crisis in the subprime mortgage market, Silver and the Assembly were the first to unveil subprime legislation to help those working families keep their homes. As the economy continued its drastic decline, the Assembly was quick to pass legislation enabling an extension of unemployment benefits for out-of-work New Yorkers.

Making Communities Safer

Silver helped lead the effort to reform the state’s draconian Rockefeller Drug Laws, giving non-violent offenders a path to treatment and productivity. Silver also guided the passage of legislation to protect citizens of wrongful conviction and expand the DNA database. The Assembly has passed a bill requiring the microstamping of shell casings so that police can trace the guns used in violent crimes. Under Silver's leadership, the Bias Crime Law, which combats violence associated with hatred, bigotry and prejudice, was enacted in 2000.

During his time as Chair of the Assembly’s Codes Committee, Silver advanced the highly successful Safe Streets/Safe Cities and COMBAT programs. His successes also include an expanded State Asset Forfeiture Law, the 1999 Clinic Access and Stalking Act, Kendra’s Law, and landmark gun control legislation passed in

2009, including measures banning armor-piercing bullets, requiring the licensing and relicensing of firearm permits after five years and more stringent recordkeeping and reporting of gun sales.

Protecting our Environment and Reducing Energy Costs

Silver has led the fight to make New York a national leader in environmental protection, energy efficiency and sustainability. He was named an “Eco-Star” in 2011 by the League of Conservation Voters for his work on clean energy and environmentally sustainable legislation. With Silver’s strong support, the state enacted the Power NY Act, which clears the way for clean-energy development while protecting overburdened communities; creates green jobs and puts energy-efficiency improvements within reach for more homeowners; and charts a path for rapid growth in solar energy production. The state has also passed one of the nation’s most progressive electronics waste recycling laws.

In 1998, Silver scored a major victory when he prevented the placement of a garbage incinerator at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 2009, Silver sponsored the Green Jobs/Green New York Act which will dramatically scale up efforts to boost energy efficiency in commercial and residential buildings throughout the state and create new green energy jobs. Deeply committed to mass transit, Silver led the 2009 effort to rescue the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and with the Members of the Assembly, crafted legislation that succeeded in preventing massive fare hikes and service cuts, while providing funding for the MTA capital plan.

Silver and Assembly Democrats have consistently fought to include funding in the state budget for the Environmental Protection Fund. Silver and the Assembly also won inclusion of an expanded bottle recycling law that will take millions of plastic water bottles out of New York’s waste stream for the first time. Silver’s leadership has been critical to key environmental victories including: the creation of New York’s new net metering law that allows commercial properties to sell their excess energy back to the grid, the creation of tax credits for solar installations and green roofs in New York City, restoration of the bio heat tax credit, passage of the Great Lakes Compact, and reform of the state’s brownfield cleanup program.

Social Justice for All New Yorkers

The Assembly led the fight to on the historic law granting marriage rights to same-sex couples, a landmark in the pursuit of social justice. At Silver’s direction, the Assembly has for years taken a variety of actions to ensure justice and equality under the law for all New Yorkers, including measures banning racial profiling, requiring pay equity, mandating equal opportunity for persons with disabilities, as well as the Farmworkers Bill of Rights, Dignity for All Students, and the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act. In 2010, the long fight to establish clear labor standards for domestic workers was finally won.

Silver is a nationally recognized advocate for religious freedom. From his earliest days in the Assembly, when he achieved enactment of legislation protecting the employment rights of Sabbath observers, Silver has been a relentless champion of social justice. Over the years, his determined leadership has led to the enactment of the toughest Holocaust justice law in the nation.

September 11th and the World Trade Center

The 9/11 terrorist attacks struck at the heart of the Lower Manhattan community that Silver represents and where he makes his home. With his devastated Downtown community under lockdown, Silver procured a mobile command center and set out to assist his constituents with their day-to-day needs, from obtaining groceries, fresh water and prescription drugs to handling legal matters and communicating with family members outside of New York City.

In the months and years that followed, Silver led the way in making sure that the World Trade Center site was rebuilt and that Lower Manhattan is developed better and stronger than before. He authored a “Marshall Plan” for Lower Manhattan, which helped attract tens of thousands of new residents and provided incentives for businesses to relocate and create jobs. He helped resolve a dispute between landowners that kick-started the redevelopment at the Trade Center site and has been instrumental in transforming Lower Manhattan into a thriving, 24/7 community.

Reforming New York State Government

Silver and the Members of the Assembly are committed to making state government more transparent, more accountable and more efficient. Silver initiated the call for joint Assembly/Senate conference committees to receive and analyze public testimony on every aspect of the state’s financial plan.

Silver has also championed campaign finance, sponsoring a bill to create a public financing system for state elections and requiring a certain number of small-dollar donors, leveling the playing field and making elections more fair.

Election reforms were also passed to encourage greater voter participation through simplification of the absentee voting process. Additionally, the Assembly has advanced reforms to make the state’s public authorities more transparent and accountable, to reduce the influence of special interests in procurement lobbying, and to encourage cost saving in state technology procurement.

An Acknowledged Leader and Honored Public Servant

Silver has received numerous awards and honors. In 2009, the Environmental

Advocates named him as their "Legislator of the Year" for doing "the most to advance environmentally beneficial policy." Earlier awards include: the Distinguished Civic Leadership Award from the Chinese-American Planning Council; the United Jewish Appeal Citation for humanitarian efforts; the National Arts Club’s Centennial Citation of Merit for Leadership In Education; the Friend of SUNY Award; the Downtown/Lower Manhattan Association’s Rockefeller Award; New York Downtown Hospital’s Elizabeth Blackwell, M.D. Medal; the National Black Leadership Commission on AIDS’ Outstanding Leadership Award; the Family Planning Advocates of NYS’s Margaret Sanger Award; and the Securities Industry Association’s Travers J. Bell Award. A member of the Assembly’s Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force, Silver has also been honored by Somos El Futuro.

Silver is a graduate of Yeshiva University and was bestowed an honorary doctorate by his alma mater. A graduate of Brooklyn Law School, Silver and his wife Rosa reside on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The Silvers have four children, Edward, Janine, Michelle and Esther, and many grandchildren.