Cuomo, Mario Matthew (1932- )

US Democrat politician. He was governor of New York State 1983-95. One of his party's foremost thinkers, he was for many years seen as a future president. His key concern was that rich and poor America should unite.

Cuomo was born in New York and became a lawyer. Following the publication of Forest Hills Diary: The Crisis of Law Income Housing (1974), an account of his assessment of a proposed public housing project in a middle-class community, he became secretary of state of the State of New York, acting as the governor's negotiator in statewide crises. In 1994 he wrote The New York Idea: An Experiment in Democracy.