After two days of meetings behind closed doors. Assembly Democrats emerged Tuesday night with a plan to change leadership, giving Sheldon Silver an ultimatum.
"On Monday, there will be a vacancy in the office of speaker. The members will come onto the floor. We will set February 10 as the election day for a new speaker," said Assembly Majority Leader Joe Morelle.
The legislators decided on Monday night that they had lost faith in Silver in the wake of his arrest on federal corruption charges last week, but the speaker has yet to resign.
For the second day in a row, Silver tried to give reporters the slip by exiting through a side door. In a wild scrum with the Albany media, Silver was asked about the decision of his fellow Assembly members to force him out.
Silver: I don't know what decision my colleagues made. I made a decision that I will not hinder this process.
Q: So will you be resigning before the session on Monday?
Silver: I will not hinder a succession process.
Assembly members, though, now know that Silver will be gone, setting up jockeying for who can succeed him.
"We're not going to allow outside influences to control what's happening inside the room," said Assemblyman Phil Goldfeder of Queens. "It's not the decision of good-government groups, unions, other elected officials outside of Albany to determine how the legislative body continues to move forward."
Besides Morelle, early front-runners for the speaker's job on a more permanent basis include Carl Heastie of the Bronx and Keith Wright of Harlem.
The candidates for speaker have until next month to win the support of their colleagues. No consensus candidate had emerged after two days of meetings.