A former top aide to ex-Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has been appointed to the Joint Commission on Public Ethics.

James Yates, who was first appointed as a Court of Claims judge in 1992 by Gov. Mario Cuomo and elected to state Supreme Court in 1997, served as counsel to Silver from 1989 until 1992 and again from 2011 to 2015.

Yates remained as counselor to Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie after Silver was ousted following an indictment, and subsequent conviction, on multiple public corruption charges. Yates, who was the Democratic-dominated assembly's chief negotiator on the state budget and other legislative matters, retired in June 2015.