Silver's Boy

It sounded like a great idea: an "Independent" assemblyman who'd go to Albany and work to change the status quo. Tim Gordon campaigned on a substantive platform with the glorious I-word attached to everything he said.

And then Mr. Gordon got to Albany, and Albany got to Mr. Gordon.

In his first legislative action, Gordon voted for Sheldon Silver, patron saint of the pedophile and the Medicaid defrauder, as speaker. Of course, Gordon's categorical forfeiture of his principles had begun before he was even sworn in. This "outsider" accepted $3000 from the personal PAC of Sheldon Silver himself [BOE], something explicitly forbidden by the Independence Party [IPNYS].

1. Party Standards for Candidates: The Independence Party imposes certain standards on its candidates. These Include: (1) they will accept no PAC funds;

Silver has consistently been the antithesis of the reforms championed by the Independence Party: he's stod in the way of Referendum and Initiative, fair redistricting and countless electoral and budgetary reforms.

The past two months have seen Gordon operating as a reliable rubber stamp on Silver's agenda, going so far as to vote for the completely unqualified Tom DiNapoli as comptroller for the sole reason that he was a fellow insider. This kind of behavior won't get him re-elected in such a Republican-leaning district; it's no wonder he's allowed his campaign website to expire [Team Gordon].