Assembly Dems Kill Pricing

Speaker Sheldon Silver, as quoted in the Daily Politics:

“The conference has decided that they are not prepared to do congestion pricing,” said Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver after emerging from behind closed doors where he was closeted with members of his Democratic majority. “I think you can speak to the members of the conference who have made that determination.”

“Many of them just don’t believe in the concept,” the speaker continued. “Many of them think this bill is flawed. So an overwhelming majority of the conference that opposes congestion pricing, and for that reason, the congestion pricing bill did not have anywhere near a majority of the Democratic conference, and will not be on the floor of the Assembly.”

“They made a decision,” Silver said of his members. “If I were making the decision alone, I might have made a different decision.”

Assuming this is truly the end and not an exercise in brinkmanship, Streetsblog will post a more complete post-mortem soon.

If you’re feeling outraged at this news, may we suggest a constructive way to vent?