OMG… He is the biggest obstacle to any and all forms or reform and accountability in Albany. I tell people all the time that he is the most powerful politician in this state. How one man can stand in the way is beyond me.

We will never see any real changes until he is gone and the power structure in Albany is split between 4 or 5 seperate assemblymen/women. It’s like the old style mafia in the assembly and we are the ones paying the bill.

Speaker Silver plays a new game in Albany

As a guard for the Yeshiva University basketball team, Shelly Silver could do it all - shoot from the outside, drive to the basket, pass to teammates and hold the ball as long as it took to find an open man.

On the court in the early ’60s, Silver showed the same ruthlessness that he would flash decades later in the State Legislature. But, for nearly a dozen years as Assembly speaker, one of the state’s most powerful officials, the trait that has most pleased his supporters and frustrated his opponents is his ability simply to hold the ball.

As a Democratic leader up against a Republican Senate majority leader and governor, Silver stalled - on Medicaid or education cuts, for instance - until he got his way or his adversaries simply gave up.

His job, as he likes to say, was to “keep bad things from happening to good people.” That is, to keep the conservative Republicans, who were in control of the state until recently, from gutting liberal Democratic programs - and any other that hurt a big supporter of his team, such as trial lawyers or health care unions.

Now, Silver has been forced to play a somewhat different game. Since the arrival on Jan. 1 of Gov. Eliot Spitzer, a Democrat, Silver became the player in the pivot. Often Silver has found himself trying to balance the demands of Spitzer to get big things done and those of his members to keep things the same or change more slowly.

Silver can’t, as he did with Republican George Pataki, refuse to do everything Spitzer wants, including many changes to crime and labor laws that many Assembly Democrats don’t like. But in his new role, Silver has moved his guys close enough to Spitzer to get deals on reforming uncompetitive workers compensation rules and wasteful public construction regulations. He got them to eat more in hospital cuts than he ever would have if Pataki had proposed them.

Yet, Silver also has a huge majority of more than 100 members at whose pleasure he is speaker. There’s only so far he can push them, even if it incurs the wrath of steamroller Spitzer. That’s why, after trying to broker a compromise, Silver defied Spitzer on the choice for state comptroller: His members were outraged Spitzer found none of them qualified, and they voted for Tom DiNapoli of Long Island.

This new dynamic in Albany has made Silver a better leader, I believe. As Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno was for years as Pataki’s GOP ally, Silver has become the leader to bring Bruno and the governor together. It has forced Silver to be more, well, responsible.

Sometimes, Silver’s job is simply to bring Democrats together. One example is the spat between minority state lawmakers and Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy over the latter’s overheated rhetoric on undocumented immigrants.

First, Silver refused to allow a vote on a resolution to censure Levy, fearing it would draw too much attention to the party’s fault line between its city, minority liberals and suburban, white conservatives.

Now, as the lawmakers are refusing to approve a critical tax extension for Levy’s county, Silver is trying to find a compromise that will get Suffolk the money it needs to run its government and will let the legislators at least save face.

What makes this issue tough for Silver is that the minority caucus has enough clout in the Democratic house to threaten his leadership. Yet Silver also knows the importance of suburban officials - such as the popular Levy - to solidify Democratic control of the state.

Of course, Silver’s primary concern is survival - his as leader and his majority as a veto-proof force. And he can still obstruct with the best of them, as he has so far with New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal. Remember, it was Silver who scuttled (and should have) Bloomberg’s push to build a stadium on the West Side. And he has done his all to slow down several tough criminal justice measures sought by Spitzer and the Republicans.

But, overall, Silver is playing well at his new position, and the state isn’t any worse for it.