Andrew Mark Cuomo (; Italian: [ˈkwɔːmo]; born December 6, 1957) is an American politician, author and lawyer serving as the 56th and current governor...
Andrew Mark Cuomo (; Italian: [ˈkwɔːmo]; born December 6, 1957) is an American politician, author and lawyer serving as the 56th and current governor of New York since 2011. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position his father, Mario Cuomo, held for three terms. He has served as Chair of the National Governors Association since August 2020.
Born in Queens, New York City, Cuomo is a graduate of Fordham University and Albany Law School of Union University, New York. He began his career working as the campaign manager for his father, then as an assistant district attorney in New York City before entering private law practice. He founded Housing Enterprise for the Less Privileged (HELP USA) and was appointed chair of the New York City Homeless Commission, a position he held from 1990 to 1993.
Cuomo served as Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Community Planning and Development from 1993 to 1997. From 1997 to 2001, he served in President Bill Clinton's Cabinet as the 11th United States secretary of housing and urban development. In 2006, Cuomo was elected Attorney General of New York. Cuomo won the 2010 New York gubernatorial election to become Governor of New York and has been reelected twice after winning primaries against liberal challengers Zephyr Teachout (2014) and Cynthia Nixon (2018).
During his governorship, Cuomo oversaw the passage of the 2011 Marriage Equality Act, introducing same-sex marriage in New York, and the 2014 Compassionate Care Act, legalizing medical marijuana. In response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the 2012 Webster shooting, Cuomo signed the NY SAFE Act of 2013, the strictest gun control law in the United States. He co-founded the United States Climate Alliance, a group of states committed to fighting climate change by following the terms of the Paris Climate Accords. He also delivered Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act; a 2011 tax code that raised taxes for the wealthy and lowered taxes for the middle class; 12-week paid family leave along with a gradual increase of the state's minimum wage to $15; and pay equity. Cuomo received national attention for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York.
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Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman and former presidential candidate who has served as the junior United...
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman and former presidential candidate who has served as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019. He previously served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007 and was the Republican Party's nominee for president of the United States in the 2012 election.
Raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, by his parents, George and Lenore Romney, he spent over two years from 1966 in France as a Mormon missionary. He married Ann Davies in 1969; they have five sons. By 1971, he had participated in the political campaigns of both parents. In 1971 Romney graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in English from Brigham Young University (BYU) and in 1975 gained the JD–MBA degree from Harvard. Romney became a management consultant and in 1977 joined Bain & Company in Boston. As Bain's chief executive officer (CEO), he later helped lead the company out of a financial crisis. In 1984, he co-founded and led the spin-off company Bain Capital, a private equity investment firm that became one of the largest of its kind in the nation. Active in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) throughout his adult life, Romney served as bishop of his ward and later as a stake president, for an area covering Boston and many of its suburbs.
After stepping down from Bain Capital and his local leadership role in the LDS Church, Romney ran as the Republican candidate in the 1994 United States Senate election in Massachusetts. After losing to longtime incumbent Ted Kennedy, he resumed his position at Bain Capital. Years later, a successful stint as president and CEO of the then-struggling Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Winter Olympics led to a re-launch of his political career. Elected Governor of Massachusetts in 2002, Romney helped develop and later signed a health care reform law (commonly referred to as "Romneycare") that provided near-universal health insurance access through state-level subsidies and individual mandates to purchase insurance. He also presided over the elimination of a projected $1.2–1.5 billion deficit through a combination of spending cuts, increased fees and closing corporate tax loopholes. He did not seek re-election in 2006, instead focusing on his campaign for the Republican nomination in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Though he won several primaries and caucuses, Romney ultimately lost the nomination to Senator John McCain. Romney's considerable net worth, estimated in 2012 at $190–250 million, helped finance his political campaigns prior to 2012. Romney again ran for and won the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, becoming the first Mormon to be a presidential nominee of a major party. He was defeated by incumbent Democratic President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election, losing the Electoral College by a margin of 206–332 and the popular vote by a margin of 47–51%.
After re-establishing residency in Utah, Romney announced his campaign for the U.S. Senate seat held by the retiring Orrin Hatch in the 2018 election; he defeated state representative Mike Kennedy in the Republican primary and Democrat Jenny Wilson in the general election. In doing so, he became only the third individual ever to be elected governor of one state and U.S. senator for another state (the others being Sam Houston and William Bibb). Romney was sworn in on January 3, 2019. In the impeachment trial of Donald Trump, he voted to convict the president of abuse of power (over Trump's attempts to get Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce an investigation into his political rival Joe Biden), becoming the first and only senator in U.S. history to vote to convict a president of his own party.
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