For anyone who thinks New York has paid the full cost of Shelly Silver’s coverup of Vito Lopez’s groping, now comes news of a new victim: the bill to legalize mixed martial arts.
Mixed martial arts — or “ultimate fighting” — is already legal in 48 states. The sport generates $500 million in revenue each year, and a bill in the state Legislature would help New York gain a slice of that pie by making the sport legal here. Legalization would be particularly helpful to upstate venues from Syracuse to Rochester that are hurting for jobs and opportunity.
But the latest word is this bill is not going to go anywhere now, even though it has 64 sponsors, just 12 short of the majority vote it would surely get if sent to the Assembly floor. The reason? At a time when Speaker Silver has become the poster boy for harassment coverups, he’s afraid to rile women’s groups that regard ultimate fighting as too violent and sexist.
Now, Shelly’s already kept the bill bottled up for years, even as the Senate has regularly passed it. But this year the stars seemed to be falling into alignment, especially after Gov. Cuomo said some kind words about the jobs and money legalization would bring. And the legislative co-sponsors include 10 women.
It would be one thing if this legislation were defeated in an up-or-down vote. But it’s another to have it smothered up because the speaker has a personal interest in not having a debate about sexism and violence that may hit too close to home.
So how about it, Governor? Even Albany finally recognized the cost — moral and financial — of hushing up Lopez’s bad behavior. Must we keep paying for Shelly’s?