NYS Governor Cuomo administered Oath of Office on December 31st; Duffy, former mayor of Rochester, is lieutenant governor

Andrew Cuomo was elected the 56th governor of NYS on November 2nd. Cuomo and lieutenant governor Robert Duffy, former mayor of Rochester, were administered the Oath of Office at the Executive Mansion on December 31st by chief judge Jonathan Lippman. Prior to his election, Cuomo served four years as N.Y.'s attorney general. As the state's top legal officer, he made restoring public trust in government and protecting N.Y. taxpayers the top priorities of his administration. As attorney general, Cuomo brought national reform to the student loan industry, uncovered fraud within the largest health insurers in the country, protected investors from abuses on Wall St., and made the Internet safer for children nationwide. His groundbreaking investigations into the state pension system ended decades of government corruption in New York and set a model for public pension funds across the country. Cuomo has a long record of fighting for justice and championing government reform. In 1997, Cuomo was appointed by President Clinton to serve as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Under his leadership, HUD was transformed from a bureaucratic backwater rife with waste, fraud, and abuse to a revitalized engine for economic development and unprecedented housing opportunities. Cuomo brought reforms to make government efficient and competent while saving taxpayers millions of dollars. Cuomo's work earned HUD the "Innovations in American Government Award" from the Ford Foundation and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University on three different occasions. As secretary, Cuomo made fighting racial discrimination a key focus and brought 2,000 anti-discrimination cases all across the country. In addition, Cuomo established Housing Enterprise for Less Privileged (HELP) in 1986, which became one the nation's largest private providers of transitional housing for the homeless. Based on his pioneering work through HELP, Cuomo was appointed by N.Y.C. mayor David Dinkins in 1991 to lead the N.Y.C. Commission on the Homeless. Cuomo first practiced law as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. He has also worked as a partner in a N.Y.C. law firm and was of counsel at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. Cuomo graduated from Fordham University in 1979 and Albany Law School in 1982. He is the father of three girls, twins Mariah and Cara who are 15 years old and Michaela who is 13.