Maybe there’s something after all to the lawsuit that Chief Judge Judith Kaye recently filed in which she’s trying to force the state to raise the base pay of New York’s jurists.
Because it turns out that, as part of the suit, Kaye is seeking to pry loose the most tightly guarded secret in New York state history.
Namely: How much is Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver paid each year in his role serving “of counsel” at the megabucks tort-law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg?
Indeed, Kaye’s lawyer, former White House Counsel Bernard Nussbaum, wants to put that question to Silver directly and force him to answer.
Under oath.
Hmm. Now this could be interesting.
Silver, of course, has long been reaping untold amounts from what may be the country’s most prolific personal-injury law firm – untold, because neither he nor Weitz & Luxenberg has ever had the courage to disclose how much he’s paid, or even precisely what he does for the firm.
Still, one thing’s for sure: Silver over the years has single-handedly throttled any and all tort-law reforms introduced in Albany – laws that likely would cost Weitz & Luxenberg some big bucks.
Now Nussbaum, on behalf of Judge Kaye, argues that Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno “must be made to explain in open court . . . their insistence that judicial pay increases (which all agree are warranted) be held hostage to the desire of legislators to increase their own salaries.”
And, Nussbaum added, “We will prove at trial that legislators can and do earn outside income – in some cases, as we will show, substantial amounts.”
In Shelly Silver’s case, are New Yorkers about to find out just how substantial?
A lawyer for Joe Bruno, who also has business interests he’d rather not discuss publicly, has charged that Nussbaum’s threat “sounds like in another venue it would be blackmail.”
Well, yes.
And it may work – assuming Silver is willing to sacrifice the pay raise he wants for his own members in order to keep his outside income top secret.
But we sure hope he holds out long enough that he finally can be put under oath and asked to produce his W-2s.
All New York is waiting with bated breath.