Sheldon Silver

Silver Supports Transit Lockbox, Assembly Vote Likely Tonight

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver supports the transit lockbox bill, said spokesperson Mike Whyland this evening. According to Whyland, the bill will be voted out of the Rules Committee tonight and head to the floor.

By Noah Kazis

6:06 PM EDT on June 23, 2011

Whyland said that the only thing standing in the way of the Assembly passing the measure could be time constraints, as tonight is supposed to be the last of the session. “The one thing that could jeopardize it would be attempts by suburban Republicans to attach amendments about the MTA payroll tax. That’s a non-starter,” said Whyland. While those attempts could be beaten back, he said, it would take extra time to do so. If a delay happens, the lockbox bill could be abandoned in order to make time for legislation that is a higher priority for the Democratic caucus, such as rent regulation.

The State Senate voted for the lockbox yesterday, so an Assembly vote would send it to the governor’s desk.

We’ll have more on this story as it develops.

Noah Kazis

Noah joined Streetsblog as a New York City reporter at the start of 2010. When he was a kid, he collected subway paraphernalia in a Vignelli-map shoebox. Before coming to Streetsblog, he blogged at TheCityFix DC and worked as a field organizer for the Obama campaign in Toledo, Ohio. Noah graduated from Yale University, where he wrote his senior thesis on the class politics of transportation reform in New York City. He lives in Morningside Heights.