NO New York politician in modern times, not even the storied Gov. Nelson Rocke feller, ever wielded the influence now enjoyed by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver — a Lower East Side boy grown rich and famous in the service of the district where he grew up.
And of himself.
Much of Silver’s influence devolves from the irrelevance of Gov. Paterson and of Senate Majority Leader Malcolm Smith — neither of whom could make an impression in a pail of wet concrete.
Thus the wildly irresponsible state budget agreed to in Albany this week is Silver’s handiwork, crafted in all important respects by Assembly Ways and Means Committee fiscal ace Dean Fuleihan — with former colleague Laura Anglin, nominally the state budget director, in a supporting role.
No detail, big bucks or small change, was overlooked.
* Big Bucks: Paterson repeatedly promised a line-in-the-sand battle over income-tax hikes. Silver laughed, Paterson wilted and billions in new levies became law, while the public-employee unions that so strongly support Silver cheered.
Mission accomplished.
* Small change: Salted away in the fine print was $687,000 for the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty — twice the $340,000 salary of Met Council executive director William Rapfogel, the husband of Silver’s $154,000-a-year chief of staff, Judy Rapfogel.
It’s good to be the king’s friend.
Especially since Silver’s influence extends far beyond the state budget-making process. Indeed, the speaker’s shadow falls over virtually every important aspect of public life in New York.
And that’s not counting his part-time job: Silver’s salary from the trial-law firm of Weitz & Luxenberg is secret, but he’s a legendary rainmaker for the outfit — and is also ideally situated to block the one thing litigators fear most: tort-law reform.
Not to worry about that, though. Legislation repealing modest reforms in medical-malpractice law is now working its way through Albany.
Perhaps even more significant to the tort-law lobby is Silver’s relationship with Jonathan Lippman: Freshly appointed by Paterson to the highest judicial position in the state, Lippman is — as Silver told anyone who would listen back in January — a close friend from their childhood days on the Lower East Side.
As chief judge of the Court of Appeals, Lippman presides over New York’s Office of Court Administration — with its 18,000-plus employees, $2.7 billion budget and life-and-death grip on issues of intense interest to trial lawyers everywhere.
Meanwhile, Silver’s own life-and-death grip on the Legislature — he controls enough votes in his house to determine the outcome of joint Assembly-Senate resolutions — has given him huge influence over critical elements of state government.
* Silver essentially handpicked the successor to disgraced ex-Comptroller Alan Hevesi two years ago, installing Assembly colleague Tom DiNapoli as New York’s official fiscal watchdog.
And DiNapoli’s carefully hedged endorsement yesterday of Silver’s (intrinsically unbalanced) budget suggests that the speaker’s confidence in his protege wasn’t misplaced.
* Silver’s legislative hammer-lock also gives him enormous influence over all education in New York state — public and private, from pre-kindergarten to post-grad and beyond.
The speaker has the final say on appointments to the Board of Regents, the body with the last word on education in the Empire State.
Thus he will loom large later this year on the selection of a new commissioner of education — who in turn will directly control 4,000 state Education Department employees and oversee the disbursement of some $30 billion in aid from Albany.
And Silver is also well-acquainted with newly named Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch — who’s also the chairman of the board of the Met Council on Jewish Poverty. While he likely won’t control her, he certainly will have her ear.
All of this adds up to one enormously powerful politician, operating with neither check nor balance in the vacuum created by the abdication of Eliot Spitzer and the ascension of the utterly hapless Paterson.
In this respect, Spitzer has much for which to answer.
And Sheldon Silver probably has to pinch himself every morning:
No, Mr. Speaker — it’s not a dream.
mcmanus@nypost.com