Mario Cuomo

Over the weekend, news broke that top aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo are being probed by the U.S. attorney in connection with the Buffalo Billion economic development project.

The Buffalo Billion project is the centerpiece of Cuomo’s efforts to reverse decades of economic decline in New York’s second largest city. It’s been credited with helping spur jobs and new industries, including in high tech and the medical field.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo released his State of the State message and $143 billion budget spending plan, which includes nearly $1 billion more for schools next year and ethics reforms.

The push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour is getting some help from union financed advertising, but it still has its opponents.  

Gov. Andrew Cuomo laid out a sweeping agenda for 2015, in today’s joint State of the State and budget address. The two yearly presentations were combined following the death of Cuomo’s father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo on Jan. 1.

Many of the proposals the governor emphasized in his speech, have been rolled out in recent weeks, like the $1.7 billion tax relief proposal, and the $500 million project to expand broadband across the state.

Cuomo offered a shout-out to one central New York institution, the New York State Fair, which he said needs a state-supported update.

Former Gov. Mario Cuomo was laid to rest in New York today after a funeral and wake that was attended by prominent politicians, including former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Vice President Joe Biden.

But the ceremony and the eulogy by his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, focused on the personal as well as the political. Cuomo called his father “the keynote speaker for our better angels.”

Former Gov. Mario Cuomo will be memorialized at a funeral service in Manhattan later this morning.

Hundreds of mourners lined up for his wake yesterday. Many political leaders also attended, including Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden, House of Representatives minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY).

Earlier in the day, Schumer remembered the three-term governor, who was said to have never forgotten that he was a Roman Catholic kid from Queens.

In addition to attending his father’s funeral, Gov. Andrew Cuomo will also be preparing for a State of the State address over the next several days.

The governor had scheduled to deliver the annual speech on Jan. 7, the day the legislature returns to session, as is traditional. But the governor and legislative leaders agreed to postpone the State of the State to Jan. 21 because of the extenuating circumstances of former Gov. Mario Cuomo's death.

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo died on New Year’s Day, just hours after his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, gave his inaugural address for his second term in office. Mario Cuomo was 82.

Mario Cuomo, born to immigrant parents who ran a grocery store in Queens, almost became a major league baseball player, before entering law school and turning to politics. He was lieutenant governor under Hugh Carey, and won a Democratic primary against then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch to become governor of New York in 1982.  

Gov. Andrew Cuomo spent his inauguration day in New York City and Buffalo, where he spoke about fixing the criminal justice system and welcomed Western New York native and the new Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul into his administration.

Cuomo, at the recently finished World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, gave his address in the midst of strife over the police killing of Eric Garner, an unarmed citizen in State Island who was selling illegal cigarettes, and the murder of two police officers.

After Gov. Andrew Cuomo participated in Monday's homecoming ceremony at Fort Drum, he was asked by a reporter about his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo and the work he did with Fort Drum while he was in office.

Former Gov. Mario Cuomo has reportedly been hospitalized for several weeks because of a heart condition, and his son has not spoken much in public about his father's health.

The current governor said he and one of his daughters visited his father Sunday night and told him the 82 year-old he would be visiting Fort Drum the next day.

The New York State Senate will likely miss a deadline to approve Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s latest choice for the state’s high court. As a result, there will be six judges instead of seven on the court come December.

The vacancy on the state’s highest court is occurring because the 14-year term of Judge Victoria Graffeo expires at the end of November. Graffeo, a widely respected Republican chosen by former Gov. George Pataki, could have served for eight more years before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 70, had Cuomo, a Democrat, chosen to reappoint her.

In the next couple of years, Governor Andrew Cuomo may have the chance to shape the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, as several judges reach the end of their terms or the mandatory retirement age. It’s an opportunity no New York governor has had in a generation.