BIOGRAPHY
GOVERNOR MARIO M. CUOMO
Mario Cuomo was the longest serving Democratic Governor in the modern history of New York State. He was elected New York State's 52nd Governor in 1983 and twice won re-election, setting records for popularity in both contests. Beginning with his widely admired keynote address at the 1984 Democratic National Convention and his celebrated speech on the relationship of religion and politics at Notre Dame, he has helped define the progressive political landscape for more than two decades.
In twelve years at the helm of the nation's most populous state, Governor Cuomo steered the State through two recessions, balanced twelve consecutive budgets, cut taxes, created more than half a million jobs, and led the state through two national recessions. He launched the largest economic development initiative in New York history, spurring private sector growth through billions of dollars of public investment in infrastructure enhancements and the creation of an unparalleled network of high-tech research facilities. During Cuomo's tenure, foreign investment in New York almost doubled and thousands of new export opportunities were created for New York firms. He furthered the national debate on economic policy and trends through the findings of the Cuomo Commission on Trade and Competitiveness -- The Cuomo Commission Report (1988) and America's Agenda: Rebuilding Economic Strength (1992).
During the decade that rocked the nation with the exploding crises of crack cocaine, homelessness and AIDS, Governor Cuomo also enhanced New York's reputation as a leader in socially progressive legislation. He created the country's most extensive drug treatment network, its largest program of housing assistance for the homeless, a nationally recognized plan for AIDS prevention and treatment, and tough but constructive new approaches to criminal justice, particularly in the area of drug-related crime. Cuomo also launched Child Health-Plus and the Children’s Assistance Program, America's first real alternatives to welfare reform later used as models for Federal welfare programs. He also initiated a revolutionary ten-year commitment to New York's children called "The Decade of the Child."
Governor Cuomo’s commitment to house the mentally ill individuals of New York State resulted in the New York/New York Agreement in 1990, which created over 3,000 units of permanent supportive housing and served as a national model for government. It also provided the foundation for two subsequent state/city agreements creating 13,500 housing units for homeless individuals and their families.
His record was defined by enlightened innovation, instituting first-in-the-nation laws on everything from seat belt use to acid rain controls, the state's first significant ethics laws for public officials, the law requiring the application of generally accepted accounting principles to the state’s budget and the first state statute requiring regular and independent audits of all executive agencies, including the Comptroller’s Office, the State Inspector General’s Office, and his own Office of the Governor. The Seat Belt Law has since been adopted by every state in the Union and has proven to have saved thousands of lives. Having designated a total of 112 judges, Governor Cuomo also set a new standard for both diversity and judicial achievement on the state's highest court, appointing all seven members of New York's highly regarded Court of Appeals, including the first and second women judges, the first black, the first Hispanic and the first woman to serve as Chief Judge.
Despite their often emphatic disagreement with him, The National Review, regarded as the bible of conservative thought in the United States, has said this about the former Governor:
"Mario Cuomo has for years been hailed as both the philosopher-king and the humble 'conscience' of the Democratic Party, a formidable, saintly genius of liberalism. Since his efflorescence at the 1984 Democratic convention, even many conservatives have accorded this, their archenemy, a certain respect."
The New York Times called his tenure “one of the most celebrated governorships in history.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia states that the Governor's speech at the University of Notre Dame on religion and politics has been described as the most important and influential ever given by a United States Catholic layman.
Governor Cuomo was Founding Chairman and is Honorary Chair of the Museum of Jewish Heritage — A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.
In 1983, Barnard College awarded Governor Cuomo its highest honor, the “Barnard Medal of Distinction.”
In 1993, Governor Cuomo declined to accept a nomination by President Clinton to our nation’s High Court, The Supreme Court of the United States.
A March 2007 Marist College poll of 641 registered voters were asked whether they thought various governors were good. Governor Cuomo, a Democrat, received a 74 percent favorable rating above those received by Governors Pataki, Carey and Rockefeller.
In 2009 The Museum of the City of New York included Governor Cuomo in it’s listing of “The New York City 400,” which recognized individuals who have helped create the world’s greatest city since its founding in 1609.
In 2013 The New York Law Journal named Governor Cuomo recipient of its “Lifetime Achievement Award” in recognition of his career accomplishments and the profound impact he has made on the law, New York’s legal community and for three terms as New York State’s Governor.
THE EARLY YEARS
Mario Cuomo began life in the struggling neighborhood of South Jamaica, Queens, at the height of the great Depression -- the son of Andrea and Immaculata Cuomo, recent immigrants from rural Italy. Though he could barely speak English when he began first grade in the New York City public schools, Cuomo graduated summa cum laude from St. John's University in 1953 and in 1956 tied for top-of-the-class honors at St. John's University School of Law. He later served there for thirteen years as an adjunct professor of law. Cuomo also clerked for New York State's highest court, the Court of Appeals, under Judge Adrian P. Burke, and entered private practice in 1958 with the firm of Corner, Weisbrod, Froeb, & Charles. He appeared in every level of the New York State Courts and the Supreme Court of The United States.
The Lawyer, Advocate, Public Servant
For more than a decade, he fought as an advocate for the ordinary citizen and eventually gained prominent public notice in 1972, when, at the request of New York City Mayor John Lindsay, he stepped in to resolve a bitter dispute over proposed public housing in the community of Forest Hills, Queens. His subsequent book, Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low-Income Housing (1974), captured both the political and philosophical dimensions of the controversy.
Cuomo continued to practice law until 1975 when he was appointed by Governor Hugh Carey as New York's Secretary of State. As Secretary of State, he helped write the first public disclosure laws in New York State and drafted the first reform of New York’s lobbying laws in over seventy years. In 1978, he was elected as Lieutenant Governor, a position he held until going on to win the governorship himself in 1982. This hard-fought and unpredictable campaign became the subject of his second book, Diaries of Mario M. Cuomo (1984).
Governor Cuomo was awarded the Federal Bar Council’s “Emory Buckner Medal” in grateful recognition of his “Outstanding Public Service.” The Federal Bar Council promotes practice excellence in federal courts as well as advancing relationships among the federal judiciary and attorneys. Past recipients of the Emory Buckner Medal have been United States Ambassadors Harriman and Richardson, United States Secretary of State, Cyrus Vance, United States Supreme Court Justices Brennan, Berger, Powell, Marshall, Blackmun, Scalia, Day O'Connor, Bader Ginsburg and United States Attorneys General Brownell and Levi. As well as Governors Dewey, Rockefeller and Senators Javits, Buckley, Moynihan and Ribicoff, and North Carolina State Attorney General Thornburg.
In 2002 Governor Cuomo was appointed by the Court to serve as Mediator for the parties in the Johns-Manville Corporation asbestos matter.
In 2011 Governor Cuomo was appointed by the Court to serve as Mediator of the Madoff Ponzi scheme victims Trustee’s claim against Sterling Equities Partners, owners of the New York Mets Baseball Club.
The Family
Married since 1954, Governor Cuomo and his wife, Matilda Raffa Cuomo, are the parents of five children: Dr. Margaret I. Cuomo, married to Howard Maier; Andrew M. Cuomo, New York State’s 56th Governor; Maria Cuomo, married to Kenneth Cole; Madeline Cuomo, married to Brian O'Donoghue; and Christopher Cuomo, CNN Anchor, married to Cristina Greeven. The Cuomos have thirteen granddaughters and one grandson.
The Cuomo Governorships
New York State has never before had father/son governors. Governor Mario M. Cuomo was elected New York State’s 52nd Governor in 1982, serving for three terms until 1994, and is the father of New York’s 56th Governor, Andrew M. Cuomo, first elected in 2010 after having served as New York State’s Attorney General since 2006.
The Private Citizen
After leaving public office, Governor Cuomo returned to the practice of law, as a Partner and now Of Counsel in the New York office of the international firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, advising public companies, boards of directors and audit committees on issues of corporate governance and financial reporting, and engaged in a broader practice specializing in national and international corporate law.
He was also a member of the Board of Editors of the New York Law Journal.
The American Academy of Arts and Letters, an organization over one hundred years old, awarded Governor Cuomo its "Medal for Spoken Language" in 1999. Governor Cuomo was the first lawyer or politician to be so honored by the Academy.
He pursued his wide-ranging interest in public policy, writing and appearing as a guest commentator on radio and television.
The Author
In his, Why Lincoln Matters, Today More Than Ever, published in 2004, Governor Cuomo brought to life the contemporary relevance of Lincoln’s message for today’s hot-button issues. In 2002, he authored the Foreword for the Second and Third Editions of Accounting Irregularities and Financial Fraud―A Corporate Governance Guide, which is a step-by-step advisory on how crises can overtake a company and how to prevent them from happening at all. In 1999, the Governor published The Blue Spruce, his first children's book, an inspirational tale derived from one of his own experiences as a child. Reason to Believe, published by Simon & Schuster in 1995 and republished in an updated version in 1996, describes the challenges facing us today and points the way to workable answers.
Before that, he had written More than Words (1993), a collection of some of the Governor's most famous speeches; The New York Idea: An Experiment in Democracy (1994), the success story of the Empire State; Lincoln on Democracy (1990), a volume Cuomo co-edited that brings together for the first time all of Abraham Lincoln's speeches, writings, and conversations on the central theme of American political life; Diaries of Mario Cuomo (1984) which described his first campaign for Governor and the Forest Hills Diary (1974), a description of the experiences that led him into public life. Editions of Lincoln on Democracy have appeared in Polish, Japanese and Hebrew.
The publisher St. Martin’s Press wrote, “More than Words is a book that, through its language and cadence, soars. A work that can be read, like Winston Churchill’s The Sinews of Peace, as not only a book of speeches but also as a record of history, it is a towering achievement of a prodigiously gifted American leader. In the end it is a book that forces us to examine our future, for ‘the achievements of our past impose upon us the obligation to do as much for those who come after us.’” “He has been described as having a ‘writer’s gift for making ideas visible.’”
