George Elmer Pataki (born June 24, 1945 is the current Governor of New York State, USA and has held that office since January 1995. He is of Hungarian, Italian and Irish descent, and is a Roman Catholic. Pataki has never lost a competitive political race to date, and is frequently mentioned as a contender for the 2008 Republican Nomination.

Education

Pataki entered Yale University in 1964 on an academic scholarship, and graduated in 1967. While there he served as Chairman of the Conservative Party of the Yale Political Union. He received his J.D. from Columbia University in 1970.

Governorship

Pataki was a first term state senator from Westchester County when he launched his bid for the Republican nomination for governor in 1994. He said he launched the campaign because of his frustration in the Senate regarding how Albany worked and on tax issues. He was little known statewide and his campaign received a boost when he was endorsed by U.S. Sen. Al D’Amato. He received the party’s endorsement at the spring state convention and easily defeated former State Republican Chairman Richard Rosenbaum in the September primary. Pataki was considered an underdog from the start since he was running against three term Gov. Mario Cuomo and that Pataki had little name recognition statewide. D’Amato reportedly backed Pataki because of a poll which showed a pro-choice, fiscal conservative from the New York City suburbs could win statewide for governor. The poll also showed a female running mate for Lieutenant Governor would help the ticket, thus leading to the selection of academic Betsey McCaughey as Pataki’s running mate.

Pataki remained neck and neck with Cuomo during the race, focusing solely on the issues of tax cuts and the death penalty during the campaign. In addition he made an issue of Cuomo seeking a fourth term as governor and pledged to serve only two terms in office. In the end, Pataki narrowly defeated Cuomo in the general election.

Environment

Pataki has long been regarding as an environmentalist and he has made the environment and open space preservation a top priority of his as governor. He has long cited that Theodore Roosevelt is his political hero for his work as a conservationist. Pataki has conserved more land statewide and has pushed bond issues in referendums which provided more money to preserve land and clean up the state’s rivers and lakes. He has been a long standing advocate for cleaning up the Hudson River and in pushing stricter environmental regulations and penalties

Death Penalty

Polls showed that the majority of New Yorkers wanted the state’s death penalty laws restored. A bill to restore the death penalty passed the Legislature several years in a row, only to be vetoed by Cuomo. Pataki made the issue a top priority of his and when the bill reached his desk he signed it into law in 1995. The state’s Court of Appeals later ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in the form in which it was written and the State Legislature has not passed a bill to restore it in a new form

Higher Education

Pataki has long vetoed increases to spending at the State University of New York and City University of New York. In addition he has vetoed increases to funding for the state’s tuition assistance program and equal opportunity program. His higher education policies have included calling for laws to limit the amount of time a student can receive state tuition assistance while in a public university, which he says will increase the rate of graduation in four years. He has also appointed more SUNY and CUNY trustees who are against open enrollment and remedial education policies and who have pushed for a stricter core curriculum program in the public universities. Pataki was criticized for appointing his close friend and former budget director, Robert King, as the Chancellor of SUNY.

Tax Cuts and Spending Cuts

Pataki has been a long time advocate of tax cuts during his administration and his time in the state legislature. He signed and sponsored several tax cuts during his first term in office and in addition made spending cuts to the budgets he proposed. This has included a push for privatization of state entities.

During the first years of Pataki’s administration, he began to institute the major spending cuts which he has advocated for most of his career. Among the cost cutting initiatives was a push to privatize of the World Trade Center from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The New York City governor’s office for more than 20 years had been in the center. The privatization effort took effect a few weeks before the September 11 attack when Larry Silverstein assumed a 99-year lease for $3.2 billion. The events and initiatives (or lack thereof) regarding the Center have defined the Pataki governorship.

Delayed Budgets

While Pataki campaigned against the New York State practice of not adopting an on time budget by the start of the April 1 state fiscal year for over a decade, Pataki’s first 10 years in office did not see the adoption of an on time budget.

Policy and Political Work

In 1999, Governor Pataki signed into law comprehensive health care legislation that provided health insurance coverage, under Family Health Plus, to lower income adults who do not have health insurance through their employers. During 1999, Pataki explored a possible bid for the Presidency and was known as being more conservative on issues in 1999 as he considered a bid fore President. In 2000, Pataki was also mentioned as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate against First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Vice Presidency

In July 2000, Pataki’s name surfaced on the short list to be the running mate for Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, along with the names of Governor John Engler of Michigan, Governor Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, former Senator John Danforth of Missouri, and former U.S. Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina. Bush eventually selected the man who was in charge of scouting vice presidential candidates, former Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney.

September 11 Terrorist Attacks

Pataki’s New York City office had moved out of the World Trade Center in the months before the September 11 attack to new offices on Third Avenue. The images of Pataki and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani giving press conferences on the day of the World Trade Center attack are burned into the history and lore of the date.

Pataki and Giuliani appointed the LMDC to distribute nearly $10 billion in federal grants and to oversee the building of a memorial as well as oversee construction. Giuliani had to step down because of term limits and Pataki took the lead on the building process.

2004 Republican Convention in New York City

Pataki was instrumental in bringing the 2004 Republican National Convention to Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. He introduced President George W. Bush. New York City, which normally votes overwhelmingly Democratic (the Democrat Presidential candidates carried 78 percent of the city vote in both 2000 and 2004), had never hosted a Republican Convention

Liberal Republican Legacy

In 2003 Pataki made a controversial budget proposal in which he proposed several tax cuts, despite the state’s rising deficits. He also made cuts in education and health care funding which, some say, may close emergency rooms and turn non-profit hospitals into for-profits. Pataki argued that new taxes would drive businesses out-of-state, reducing jobs, further compounding the deficit.

Pataki has always been liberal on social issues but by his third term many social conservatives simmered over his continued support of abortion as well as his heavy lobbying in favor of a gay rights bill which had languished in the state Senate for many years due to the opposition of Senate Leader, Joseph Bruno, from conservative upstate Rensselaer County. In 2003, Bruno finally gave in; the bill passed the senate and was signed into law by Pataki.

Official Site: Freedom PAC

Biography Source: Wikipedia

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