Mario Cuomo

Mario Cuomo (born June 15, 1932, Queens, New York, U.S.—died January 1, 2015, New York, New York) was an American politician who served three terms as governor of New York (1983–94). One of the most prominent figures in the Democratic Party, he was known as a powerful speaker and a champion of progressive policies.

Early life and legal career

Cuomo was the fourth child of Andrea and Immaculata (née Giordano) Cuomo, Italian immigrants who operated a grocery store in the South Jamaica neighbourhood in the borough of Queens, New York. When he entered the first grade, Mario Cuomo barely spoke English. As a youth, he was a promising baseball centre fielder, and, at age 20, he played part of one season for the Pittsburgh Pirates Class D farm team in Brunswick, Georgia. His baseball career came to an abrupt end when he was hit in the head by a pitch and temporarily blinded.

Having returned to his studies at Saint John’s University after his stab at professional baseball, Cuomo majored in Latin American studies, English, and philosophy and received a B.A. degree in 1953. After earning a law degree from Saint John’s in 1956, he served as the confidential assistant to Judge Adrian P. Burke of the New York State Court of Appeals and then entered private law practice in 1958. With the firm of Corner, Weisbrod, Froeb, & Charles, Cuomo argued cases at every level of the New York state courts and before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also was an adjunct professor at Saint John’s Law School for 13 years.

As a lawyer, Cuomo frequently represented ordinary citizens, as when he helped dozens of families fight eviction from their working class neighbourhood in Queens, where a school was to be built. In 1972, at the behest of New York City Mayor John V. Lindsay, Cuomo helped forge a resolution in a high-profile dispute over proposed public housing in another Queens community.

Political career

In 1975 Gov. Hugh Carey appointed Cuomo secretary of state for New York. Serving in that capacity until 1979, Cuomo put together the first reform of the state’s lobbying laws in some seven decades, facilitated the end of a rent strike in the Bronx’s Co-op City, and refereed a land dispute involving the Mohawk people. In 1977 he made an unsuccessful run for mayor of New York City, losing in the Democratic primary runoff to the eventual winner of the general election, Ed Koch. From 1979 to 1983 Cuomo was New York’s lieutenant governor.

In the 1982 New York gubernatorial race, Cuomo soundly defeated Koch in the primary and conservative Republican businessman Lewis Lehrman in the general election. Cuomo’s traditional coalition of minorities and labour unions was difficult to hold together, but he brought vitality and dedication to the governor’s job and scored several early victories, including a compromise on the state budget and the passage of a controversial billion-dollar bond issue for highway repairs. A devout Roman Catholic, Cuomo supported the church’s antiabortion stand, but he argued strongly against a legal ban on abortion, explaining that in a pluralistic society it was necessary to separate personal moral beliefs from public policy. Cuomo was also an outspoken critic of capital punishment and, as governor, vetoed legislation to restore its use in New York state several times.

At the 1984 Democratic National Convention, Cuomo delivered an electrifying keynote speech that served as a riposte to Pres. Ronald Reagan’s assessment that the U.S. was “a shining city on a hill.” Cuomo spoke passionately of a country that was divided into “the lucky and the left-out” and of the need for new Democratic leadership to unify the “family of America” with renewed “common sense and compassion.” His eloquent “Tale of Two Cities” address—as the speech came to be known—fueled intense speculation about his presidential aspirations, but, after careful consideration, he ultimately declined to seek the Democratic presidential nomination in both 1988 and 1992, disappointing many of his supporters. Cuomo won reelection as governor in 1986 and 1990 but lost his bid for a fourth term in 1994 (Republican George Pataki succeeded him). He returned to New York City to join the law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

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Personal life

In 1954 Cuomo married Matilda Raffa. She worked as a teacher to support the couple while Cuomo attended law school. As first lady of New York state, she cochaired the Governor’s Commission on Child Care. She also chaired the New York Citizens’ Task Force on the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. She and Cuomo had five children. Son Andrew Cuomo served as governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. Another son, Chris Cuomo, became a prominent television news personality.

Mario Cuomo is the author of a number of books, including Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Low-Income Housing (1974); Diaries of M. Cuomo: The Campaign for Governor (1984); The New York Idea: An Experiment in Democracy (1994); Reason to Believe (1995); a children’s book, The Blue Spruce (1999); and, with Harold Holzer, Why Lincoln Matters: Today More Than Ever (2004).

He died of heart failure just hours after Andrew Cuomo was sworn in for his second term as governor on January 1, 2015.