Irwin Steingut worked first as a reporter and then in his father's Manhattan real estate office, before his 30-year career as New York Assemblyman from Kings County (1922-1952).

Naval Reserve during World War II,[2] went on to graduate from St. John's University School of Law and was admitted to the New York bar in 1950.

[4] Late in life he would recall swimming with Franklin D. Roosevelt in the Governor's mansion in Albany as well as in the White House and running errands as a page boy for Al Smith.

[6] Steingut's father became head of the Club during the New Deal (in part to appease the Administration for McCooey's decision to support Al Smith over Franklin D. Roosevelt[7]) and remained boss until his death.

[8] Steingut joined the Madison Club early, and it was there that he came into close contact with his father's friends, who also came to Brooklyn from Manhattan's Lower East Side: Abraham "Abe" Beame and Nathan Sobel.

These areas became closely associated with him since the 1950s when he co-sponsored many programs with Republican Earl Brydges, who was especially interested in education policy and mental health issues.

One said that "his slow-moving bulk, his heavy-bagged eyes, his thinning reddish hair and the creases in his face make it seem as if he was born old and has weathered since under the stresses of political wars.

He warned of the dangers of a bill that would "derail the ship of state," and he tried to move his colleagues by noting that "this session has been hit by an avalanche of creeping paralysis.

Despite a rambling general election campaign, Kennedy defeated Senator Kenneth Keating, largely on the coattails of Johnson's landslide victory, which also gave Democrats their first Assembly majority since Steingut's father was Speaker in 1935.

There were unfounded charges of "crude" tactics including offers of campaign cash, threats of retaliation and, according to Wagner, promises of increased "lulus" (the term for legislators' untabulated expense accounts).

In the face of liberal opposition, however, Erway withdrew, as (seemingly) did Steingut's choice Jack E. Bronston who ran afoul of Queens boss Moses M. Weinstein, a Wagner supporter.

[26] Part of the arrangement Steingut had made was giving up control of the Brooklyn Democratic Committee, and its vast pool of influence, associations, and favor-seekers.

"[4] But most evidently believed that this was part of the bargain, and in any event, they had been looking for one "with the agility and the grit and the savvy needed to play the political leadership game well."

While this practice (widespread enough in New York) was not illegal, it became embarrassing just as he was poised to become Speaker before what seemed as the inevitable Democratic sweep in November 1974 in light of the Watergate scandal.

Steingut had, however, developed the reputation of being, as one put it, "the Democratic party's quintessential hack, living proof that you can still make money in politics.

"[15] In an effort at transparency, Steingut offered to make limited financial disclosure (he refused to disclose his tax returns, however), which he claimed would show his net worth was not great.

During a half-hour interview with Bob Anson of New York's Channel 13 on October 7, 1974, Steingut stated that Grand Agency had stayed away "with great circumspection from any insurance with government at all.

[11] A New York Times exposé of Bernard Bergman's disgraced Towers Nursing Home showed that its insurance was placed through Grand Agency.

"[11] The revelations and other embarrassments (he was, for example, trustee of Touro College, which was under investigation by the attorney general for a possible illegal scheme to tie Medicaid payments to leaseback contracts) did not derail his hopes, and the Democrats elected him Speaker when they retook the Assembly with a substantial 88 to 62 seat majority.

Even before taking the gavel, Steingut attempted to improve his image by striking populist themes in a mildly progressive package designed to reform the way the Assembly did business.

He also agreed to provide each member $7,500 to staff district and Albany offices and to discontinue the practice of using County Democratic Leaders (like Esposito) as whips.

Meade Esposito later claimed that giving assemblymen their own offices obviated the need for them to meet in the clubhouse where he dealt with them, and, as a result, his influence as party leader waned.

Michael Kramer said that Steingut was "using 'legislative reform' as a smoke screen to hide his real interest, the perpetuation of the business-political web that allowed him to prosper while he serves in Albany.

Stein carried on, however, and his work eventually led to the appointment of special prosecutor Charles Hynes, an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn.

In January 1978, at the beginning of the next legislative session, having weathered the nursing homes scandals and avoided a criminal trial, Speaker Steingut's prospects were as bright as at any time in his career.

Steingut was already eligible for the general election, having received the endorsement and ballot line of the Liberal Party, and so made one final attempt to cut a deal.

But the Speaker campaigned ruthlessly, Weinstein calling him an "integrationist" in the areas of the district with high concentrations of Italian Americans, Lubavitcher Hasadim and other Orthodox Jewish communities.

This dichotomy accelerated throughout the early 1970s and into his speakership, when many of his direct constituents were lower middle class, proto-Trumpist white ethnics who had expressed their incipient disaffection by crossing party lines to vote for Richard Nixon in 1972 (directly presaging the broader Reagan Democrat milieu of the 1980s) or recent Black migrants—exemplified by sociologically distinct African American and Afro-Caribbean communities with frequently antipodean political motivations—who perceived Steingut as a distant and paternalistic figure who largely eschewed grassroots campaigning until his final race.

[5] After losing his Assembly seat, in January 1979 Governor Carey made a recess appointment of Steingut to serve as Chairman of the New York State Sports Authority, a position he retained for a year.

Steingut married Madeline "Madi" Fellerman of Long Beach, New York[42] on May 30, 1943,[2] two weeks after she graduated from Russell Sage College.