Andrew Cuomo

• 1. Introduction

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  Andrew Cuomo, the 56th governor of New York, once held a distinction that is easy to overlook. From the 4th of January 2021, he was the longest-serving sitting governor in the United States, with 3,887 days in office. Within months, that record was over.

  Cuomo is the son of Mario Cuomo, himself a governor of New York. He spent decades moving between Albany, Washington and the New York City courts. His career produced a same-sex marriage law, a strict gun law, the Second Avenue Subway and a rebuilt Tappan Zee Bridge. It also produced investigations, lawsuits and a legal bill that taxpayers are still paying.

  How does the son of a famous politician build a career of his own? What remark sank his first run for governor? And what did a state report in August 2021 conclude that no earlier scandal had managed to do?

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• 2. Family Business

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  Andrew Mark Cuomo was born on the 6th of December 1957 in Queens, to the lawyer Mario Cuomo and Matilda, whose maiden name was Raffa. He grew up in the neighborhood of Holliswood. His paternal grandparents came from Nocera Inferiore and Tramonti in the Salerno province, and his maternal grandparents came from the Messina province of Sicily.

  The family was large and public. Cuomo has four siblings. They include his younger brother Chris, a news anchor who formerly worked at CNN, and his elder sister Margaret, a noted radiologist.

  In 1975 Cuomo finished at Archbishop Molloy High School, a private Catholic school in Briarwood. He took a Bachelor of Arts at Fordham University in 1979 and a law degree from Albany Law School in 1982. After graduating he lived in Sunnyside, Queens for five years.

  The year of his law degree was also the year his father ran for governor, and Andrew managed the campaign. He then joined the governor's staff as a policy advisor, and sometimes as the governor's roommate in Albany, for a salary of $1 a year. Insiders cast the pair as a good cop and a bad cop. Mario was the nice guy, and Andrew was the enforcer who pushed the legislative agenda.

  From 1984 to 1985, Cuomo worked as a Manhattan assistant district attorney, and he briefly joined the firm Blutrich, Falcone & Miller. In 1986 he founded a housing group called Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged, known as HELP. By 1988 he had left other work to run it full time.

  That housing work led to a city job. From 1990 to 1993, under Mayor David Dinkins, Cuomo chaired the New York City Homeless Commission, which shaped policy on homelessness and housing options. Washington was next.

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• 3. The Housing Secretary

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  In 1993, Cuomo became Assistant Secretary for Community Planning and Development at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, part of President Bill Clinton's team. His boss, Secretary Henry Cisneros, left at the end of Clinton's first term under the cloud of an FBI investigation. The Senate unanimously confirmed Cuomo to replace him, and he served as Secretary from January 1997 until 2001.

  In 2000, he led negotiations with the handgun maker Smith & Wesson. The company agreed to change how it designed, distributed and marketed its guns. The goal was safer guns that were harder for children and criminals to obtain. His budgets also funded rental subsidies, public housing reforms, a crackdown on housing discrimination and new empowerment zones.

  His push for home ownership has drawn a lasting argument. Cuomo urged the lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to buy more loans made to poor homeowners, in an effort to end discrimination against minorities. Edward J. Pinto, a former chief credit officer at Fannie Mae, said the risks were large and that Cuomo pressed lenders to offer a loan to everybody. Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, called Cuomo a cheerleader. Baker added that not too much blame should fall on him for the 2007-2010 subprime mortgage crisis.

  Inside the department, a different fight played out. Cuomo once declared, "The PR is the important thing I do... Eighty percent of the battle is communications." He created a program called Community Builders, with 800 new employees paid as much as $100,000. In a speech on the 16th of June 1999, he said it would help fight HUD's abolition. One HUD official described the staff as "Democratic ward heelers."

  HUD's inspector general, Susan Gaffney, was a Clinton appointee. She testified in 1998 that Cuomo and his key aides had attacked her office. In 1999 her office judged that 15 of the 19 Community Builders goals were activities rather than accomplishments. It also concluded that the initiatives had hurt HUD's ongoing operations. Gaffney retired in May 2001.

  The record had a brighter side. Two of HUD's four main departments came off the General Accounting Office's list of programs prone to fraud. The department also cut 15 percent of its staff. Cuomo then spent three years at the Fried Frank law firm, starting in 2001.

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• 4. The Comeback Kid

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  On the eve of the 2002 Democratic state convention, Cuomo withdrew from the race for governor. He had been the early favorite, leading in fundraising and polls. Then a remark about the aftermath of the September 11 attacks hurt him. Of Governor George Pataki, he said, "He held the leader's coat."

  He went on, "Cream rises to the top, and Rudy Giuliani rose to the top." The remarks were widely derided, and even his father later called them a blunder. The state comptroller, Carl McCall, became the favored candidate, and Cuomo concluded he had little chance against him.

  Four years later, he ran for attorney general. On the 30th of May 2006, he won the party's endorsement with 65% of the vote. He then beat his nearest primary opponent by more than 20%. June O'Neill, a county chairwoman, called him "New York's own Comeback Kid." On the 7th of November 2006, he defeated the Republican Jeanine Pirro with 58% of the vote.

  As attorney general, he took on lenders and internet providers. In 2007, his office investigated student loans, after many universities steered borrowers toward a preferred lender that charged higher interest rates. Many schools changed their policies and rebated millions of dollars in fees. In June 2008, he announced that Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint would stop hosting many Usenet groups. His office had found 88 newsgroups where child pornography had been posted.

  An even bigger prize slipped away in December 2008. When Hillary Clinton became President Obama's choice for secretary of state, Governor David Paterson had to name a replacement senator. Cuomo was a leading contender. In the end, Paterson chose Kirsten Gillibrand.

  The governor's office came next. In September 2009, advisors to President Obama told Paterson that the president thought he should step aside for the popular attorney general. Cuomo announced his run on the 22nd of May 2010, in a video on his campaign website. He chose Rochester mayor Robert Duffy as his running mate. Facing the Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino in November, he won in a landslide with 62.6% of the vote.

  In 2014, with Kathy Hochul as his new running mate, he faced a primary challenge from Zephyr Teachout and Tim Wu. Teachout took 34% on the gubernatorial line. He then beat Rob Astorino with 54% of the vote, a smaller margin than in 2010. In 2018, the actress Cynthia Nixon challenged him over the subway, immigrants and cannabis. Cuomo won the primary 65.5% to 34.5%, and the general election 59.6% to 36.2%.

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• 5. Laws and Landmarks

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  On the 24th of June 2011, Cuomo signed the Marriage Equality Act after an intense public and private lobbying campaign. One prominent advocate said that for gay Americans he was "the only national politician with hero status." The praise came with a stumble. He was criticized for calling opponents' views "anti-American." He later ordered state boycotts of Indiana and North Carolina over their LGBT legislation.

  On the 15th of January 2013, he signed the NY SAFE Act. It was the first state gun control bill after the Sandy Hook shooting in neighboring Connecticut. It was described as the toughest in the country. The National Rifle Association called it draconian, and the state sheriffs' association objected to its seven-round magazine limit. Later laws barred gun possession after domestic violence convictions, created a "red flag" process, and banned 3D printed guns.

  He moved more slowly on some issues. As recently as February 2017 he called cannabis a "gateway drug." By December 2018 he backed recreational legalization. He signed the Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act on the 31st of March 2021. Medical cannabis had come earlier, with the Compassionate Care Act in July 2014, which banned consumption by smoking.

  On gravity knives, he vetoed two attempts to decriminalize the folding work knives. The arrests had fallen disproportionately on African-American and Hispanic New Yorkers. On the 30th of May 2019, he signed the repeal, citing a federal court ruling in Cracco v. Vance.

  On the 17th of December 2014, his administration banned hydraulic fracturing after state health officials cited significant public health risks. In 2017 he announced that the Indian Point nuclear plant, which produced one quarter of New York City's power, would close. Fossil fuels replaced its carbon-free output, and the state struggled to meet its climate goals.

  Some measures reached people who had waited years. The 2019 Child Victims Act lets survivors of childhood abuse file civil suits until age 55. In April 2018 he said he would restore voting rights to parolees, and he would consider doing so for all of the more than 35,000. On clemency he was sparing. He commuted nine sentences, though he pardoned 140 adults convicted as 16- and 17-year-olds.

  His record on women's rights was mixed. In 2013 he pushed a Women's Equality Act of ten bills, including the Reproductive Health Act. The Senate defeated the abortion plank by 32-31, and in October 2015 he signed eight of the ten bills. On the 22nd of January 2019, he signed a new Reproductive Health Act. He lit One World Trade Center pink, which drew intense criticism from conservatives.

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• 6. Favors and Investigations

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  On his first day in office, Cuomo renewed an executive order barring governors from taking donations from their own appointees. A February 2018 investigation by The New York Times found that his administration had quietly reinterpreted it. He had collected $890,000 from 24 appointees and $1.3 million from their relatives and businesses. His campaign returned only a $2,500 donation and kept the rest.

  In July 2014 came a report that the Moreland Commission was steered away from politically damaging inquiries. Cuomo had created it to root out political corruption, and he later disbanded it. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan found insufficient evidence to prove a federal crime.

  In September 2016, Joseph Percoco, a close friend and former top aide, was indicted in a bribery investigation connected to the Buffalo Billion. A jury convicted him in March 2018 over more than $315,000 in bribes, and he received six years in prison. Cuomo was not accused of wrongdoing. In May 2023, the Supreme Court unanimously overturned the bribery conviction.

  Some of his big bets did not pay off. Cuomo joked in 2018 that he would change his name to "Amazon Cuomo" if the company chose New York for its second headquarters. Amazon bowed out of New York under local pressure. A tax incentive program called Start-Up NY had created 408 jobs by July 2016, while its advertising cost at least $53 million.

  After Hurricane Sandy, $140 million, including $40 million in federal disaster relief, went to ads for "New New York." Eliot Spitzer called them "a waste of taxpayer money."

  The subway tells a similar story. In June 2017, after a series of disasters, he declared a state of emergency. The New York Times reported that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority diverted tax revenue meant for the subways under his administration. He placed aides inside the agency and canceled capital projects over board members' objections. He also pressed the MTA toward union contracts that were very favorable to workers.

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• 7. The Pandemic Spotlight

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  On the 2nd of March 2020, Cuomo called community spread of the new coronavirus "inevitable." Two days later he confirmed nine new cases. He said stopping it was like "trying to stop air." Epidemiologists praised his early handling, including the statewide lockdown. Others said he had failed to grasp the gravity of the threat before the public could see it.

  Praise turned into celebrity. Television hosts including Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah and Ellen DeGeneres helped popularize the term "Cuomosexuals" for admirers of the governor and his brother Chris. His approval rating, 43% in February 2019, had reached a record 77% by early 2020. In November 2020, the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences gave him an International Emmy Founders Award for his briefings. It rescinded the award in August 2021, citing the attorney general's report.

  In October 2020, he published American Crisis, writing that New York had "confronted and defeated" the virus. By February 2021, the state had the nation's highest per capita hospitalization rate. He was paid more than $5 million for the book. It was alleged that Executive Chamber staffers had worked on it involuntarily. On the 14th of December 2021, the Joint Commission on Public Ethics ordered him to forfeit $5.1 million. Cuomo sued, and in August 2022 an appellate court upheld a ruling that the commission was unconstitutional. He kept the proceeds.

  The legal fight continued. In September 2023 a court found that the successor commission was unconstitutional too. On the 18th of February 2025, the state's top court declared it constitutional, so the book probe continues.

  The darkest charge concerned nursing homes. On the 25th of March 2020, Cuomo and the state Department of Health ordered homes to admit patients regardless of COVID test results. The order also barred them from testing. ProPublica said New York was the only state to block testing that way. By the time the order was undone on the 10th of May, as many as 4,500 infected patients had gone to nursing homes. More than 6,000 residents had died of COVID-19 by June 2020.

  The state attorney general's January 2021 report found nursing home deaths undercounted by as much as 50%. The FBI and the U.S. attorney in Brooklyn declined to pursue a case. In October 2024, a House subcommittee said Cuomo had reviewed, edited and even drafted parts of a health department report that low-balled fatalities. It called his testimony distancing himself from it "demonstrably false." In May 2025, the Department of Justice opened an investigation into that testimony.

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• 8. Allegations and Resignation

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  On the 13th of December 2020, Lindsey Boylan, a former aide, wrote that Cuomo had sexually harassed her for years. She was then a candidate for Manhattan borough president. His administration denied it. In February 2021 she added that he goaded her to play strip poker on a 2017 flight and forcibly kissed her in his Manhattan office. The governor's office said those claims were false.

  On the 27th of February 2021, Charlotte Bennett, an executive assistant and health policy advisor, said he had asked about her sex life. Cuomo denied making advances. The next day he said, "I now understand that my interactions may have been insensitive or too personal." He said he meant only to add levity to serious work.

  More women came forward. On the 1st of March, Anna Ruch said he touched her bare lower back at a 2019 wedding reception. The New York Times published a photograph of him with his hands on her face. On the 6th of March, Ana Liss said he touched her lower back and kissed her hand. Journalist Jessica Bakeman wrote, "It wasn't about sex. It was about power." On the 7th of April, an unnamed aide alleged that he groped her at the governor's mansion. On the 8th of August she identified herself as Brittany Commisso.

  On the 8th of March, Attorney General Letitia James hired two law firms for an independent investigation. On the 11th of March, the Assembly approved a separate impeachment investigation. James's report arrived on the 3rd of August 2021, after five months. It concluded that Cuomo had sexually harassed 11 women, and that his office had illegally retaliated against Boylan. Cuomo answered, "I never touched anyone inappropriately."

  President Joe Biden called for his resignation that same day. On the 10th of August, while denying every allegation, Cuomo said he would step down effective the 24th of August. The legislature's leaders had signaled they would seek his removal.

  Criminal cases then fell away. In October 2021, a court spokesman said he would be charged with a misdemeanor in Albany City Court. On the 4th of January 2022, District Attorney David Soares dropped the complaint, and a judge dismissed the charge three days later. Nassau and Westchester County prosecutors declined to file charges in December 2021. Oswego County dropped the final case on the 31st of January 2022.

  The civil fight went on. On the 24th of November 2023, the last day of a window under the New York Adult Survivors Act, Commisso sued him. Her lawsuit claims she faced retaliation. Cuomo's attorney called the claims false and a "cash-grab."

  The bills kept arriving. State law requires New York to pay legal costs for officials sued over conduct in office. By March 2025 the Comptroller counted around $61 million tied to Cuomo's scandals. Sixteen private law firms were involved.

  That sum became a talking point in the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary, where Cuomo led most polls. Yet he lost to Zohran Mamdani in a major upset. He ran on as an independent and lost to Mamdani again in the general election.

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