MR. SILVER'S SILENCE ON REFORM

The fight to overhaul New York State's rigid Rockefeller-era drug laws took
a depressing turn recently when Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said the
Assembly would not take up Gov. George Pataki's proposed changes. Mr.
Pataki's tepid proposals deserve criticism, and this may have been Mr.
Silver's way of expressing it. But the Speaker seems also to have
foreclosed debate on an issue that badly needs an airing, and broader reform.

The Democrats are right to reject the Governor's proposal. The Rockefeller
laws require long, costly prison sentences for relatively minor offenses.
Mr. Pataki would not repeal the laws but merely allow a very small number
of first-time drug felons -- probably fewer than 300 people -- who have
received mandatory minimum 15-year sentences to ask an appellate court to
reduce their sentences to 10 years. As a trade-off he wants the Legislature
to end parole for all nonviolent offenders, an issue that has not received
any public debate.

For years the Democrats have wanted to overhaul the pointlessly punitive
laws that imprison tens of thousands of minor drug offenders, many for more
time than that served by violent felons. But the Republicans have always
blocked reform, and hammered the Democrats for being soft on crime. Perhaps
Mr. Silver is wary of being hammered again. But Mr. Pataki's plan, however
weak, at least represents a shift in his party's reflexive opposition to
any change at all. Mr. Silver should exploit the opening, challenge the
defects in Mr. Pataki's plan and push for reform that would make a
difference.