This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Lkomisar (talk | contribs) at 00:09, 14 September 2006 (cuomo campaign keeps removing all critical remarks; it is violating the wikipedia rule about posting by objective non-interested parties). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
Revision as of 00:09, 14 September 2006 by Lkomisar (talk | contribs) (cuomo campaign keeps removing all critical remarks; it is violating the wikipedia rule about posting by objective non-interested parties)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)WARNING: THE CUOMO CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATION IS REPEATEDLY EDITING THIS POST AND REMOVING ANYTHING CRITICAL OF THEIR CANDIDATE. JUST IMAGINE THE CORRUPTION OF SUCH A PERSON WHO SEEKS TO BE THE ATTORNEY GENERAL!!!
Andrew Mark Cuomo (born December 6, 1957, in New York City) was the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under President Bill Clinton between 1997 and 2001. He is the son of former New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo.
Cuomo is the elder son of former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, whose younger son is ABC News journalist Chris Cuomo. Andrew and his ex-wife, Kerry Kennedy, the seventh child of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Skakel Kennedy, have three daughters. The couple announced their less-than-amicable separation in 2003 and have subsequently divorced.
He is a graduate of Fordham University and Albany Law School. He was a top aide to his father during his father's 1982 campaign for governor. He then joined the governor's staff as one of his father's top policy advisors, a position he filled on and off during his father's 12-year governorship. Cuomo became active in issues effecting the homeless and housing policy in New York during the 1980s and 1990s. He founded a non-profit organization focused on homeless and housing issues, Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged, or HELP.
During the administration of former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, Cuomo served as Chairman of the New York City Homeless Commission, which was charged with developing policies to end the homeless crisis in the city and to develop more housing options.
Cuomo was appointed to the Department of Housing and Urban Development in 1993, as a member of President Bill Clinton's administration. After the departure of Secretary Henry Cisneros at the end of Clinton's first term, Cuomo joined the President's cabinet in 1997. Cuomo served the remainder of Cisneros's term, until 2001.
Cuomo had lied in his hearing about being under investigation relating to a crooked banking operation, but Attorney General Janet Reno gave him a pass. Cuomo got the job because of the political pull of his father, former NY Governor Mario Cuomo.
Before Cuomo became Secretary, HUD was seen as among the most wasteful and corrupt agencies in the Federal Government. It was the only cabinet-level agency seen as a "high risk" by the Government Accountability Office. Cuomo continued the HUD tradition of insider corruption and fees for his friends. He ended a policy, started by his predecessor, Cisneros, to sell defaulted mortgages, thus allowing families to keep their homes. Instead he went back to the system of foreclosing them, making profits for insiders that bought defaulted properties and throwing families out on the street.
When Cuomo was secretary, HUD reported that $59 billion was missing. Cuomo couldn’t say where the money went, because he failed to produce audited financial statements.
Later, as reported in The New York Observer, one of the insiders, Andrew Farkas, paid him fees of over half a million dollars. A Village Voice exposé by Wayne Barrett says the fees went up to $1.2 million, plus an $800,000 campaign contribution. It noted that HUD under Cuomo let Farkas escape punishment for serious housing violations. "Andrew Cuomos's $2 million man," at http://villagevoice.com/news/0636,lozano,74361,6.html
That was part of a culture of corruption during the Cuomo HUD administration, as described in "Fees for Our Friends," by Lucy Komisar at http://thekomisarscoop.com/2006/08/22/fees-for-our-friends-the-scandal-that-taints-andrew-cuomo/.
See: New York attorney general election, 2006
Some expected him to run for Governor of New York again, as a candidate for the Democratic nomination in 2006, but Cuomo decided against a run when New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer entered the race in late 2004. Cuomo declared his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Attorney General of New York in 2006, and on May 30, 2006, captured the Democratic Party's endorsement, recieving 67 percent of the delegates' votes. Though Cuomo won the endorsement, former New York City Public Advocate Mark J. Green, Charlie King, a two-time candidate for lieutenant governor, and Sean Patrick Maloney, a former aide to President Clinton, also earned places on the Democratic primary election ballot. King dropped out of the race before the primary and endorsed Cuomo.
When The New York Times endorsed Cuomo's opponent, Mark Green, it made reference to Cuomo's use of HUD to promote his own political career. The Times wrote:
"Mr. Cuomo’s record at HUD was mixed, and is one cause of our concern about how he would handle the job of attorney general. Before Mr. Spitzer restored it to top professional status, the office was a nesting place for political hacks. It would be unfortunate to see it politicized again by any attorney general whose chief concern was burnishing a political resume. And during Mr. Cuomo’s time in the Clinton cabinet, his first concern did not always seem to be housing. As he left HUD, Mr. Cuomo’s operation produced a 150-page report of his accomplishments that included a CD and pictures of the secretary with celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker. It cost the taxpayers a whopping $688,000 to produce what amounted to future campaign fodder.
Mr. Cuomo did make gains in housing for the homeless at the huge agency, but there were real problems with his performance. For New Yorkers, the worst failure was insufficient oversight of a federal housing rehabilitation program so overrun by dishonest appraisers, brokers and lenders that it devastated parts of Brooklyn and Harlem. Mr. Spitzer even sued one participant in this program during the Cuomo years and cited “massive fraud” that was increasing neighborhood blight."
On September 12, Cuomo won the primary with a majority of the vote, defeating his nearest opponent by over 20% of the vote. The general election will be against the Republican nominee, former Westchester District Attorney Jeanine Pirro on November 7, 2006.
If Cuomo is elected, a key question will be what he does about the Maurice "Hank" Greenberg case started by current Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer accused billionaire Greenberg of cooking the books of AIG, the insurance conglomerate, when he was CEO. He was fired after the revelations. Andrew's father, Mario, announced last year that he was starting a public relations effort on behalf of Greenberg. If past practices of helping out the monied and powerful are any indication, if Andrew Cuomo becomes attorney general, he will drop the case.
YOU ARE LUCKY IF YOU READ ANYTHING CRITICAL OF CUOMO IN THIS POST. THE CUOMO PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THAT ALL POSTS ARE PERMANENTLY SAVED AND RESEARCHERS WILL KNOW OF THEIR CENSORSHIP. ON THE OTHER HAND, ISN'T IT INTERESTING THAT CUOMO THINKS WIKIPEDIA SO IMPORTANT THAT HE ASSIGNS STAFF PEOPLE TO CENSOR IT EVERY DAY!
| Preceded byHenry Cisneros | U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development 1997–2001 |
Succeeded byMel Martinez |
| Preceded byBetsy McCaughey Ross | Liberal Party Nominee for Governor of New York 2002 |
Succeeded by |
| United States secretaries of housing and urban development | ||
|---|---|---|
 | ||