Spitzer, Eliot, 1959-

Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician, attorney, educator, and real estate developer. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 54th Governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008.

Born in New York City, Spitzer attended Princeton University and earned his law degree from Harvard. Upon receiving his Juris Doctor, Spitzer clerked for Judge Robert W. Sweet of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, then joined the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He stayed there for less than two years before leaving to join the New York County District Attorney's office. Spitzer joined the staff of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, where he became chief of the labor-racketeering unit and spent six years, from 1986 to 1992, pursuing organized crime. Spitzer left the District Attorney's office in 1992 to work at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. From 1994 to 1998 he worked at the law firm Constantine and Partners on a number of consumer rights and antitrust cases.

From 1999 to 2006, he served two four-year terms as the Attorney General of New York. As Attorney General, Spitzer stepped up the profile of the office. Traditionally, state attorneys general have pursued consumer rights cases, concentrating on local fraud while deferring national issues to the federal government. Breaking with this traditional deference, Spitzer took up civil actions and criminal prosecutions relating to corporate white-collar crime, securities fraud, Internet fraud, and environmental protection. Spitzer used authority given to him by New York state law in his civil actions against corporations and criminal prosecutions against their officers. It proved useful in the wake of several U.S. corporate scandals that began with the collapse of Enron in 2001. In 2006, he was elected Governor of New York.

Spitzer was inaugurated as New York’s 54th Governor on January 1, 2007. In his first year, he enacted the significant education reform; reduced property taxes for middle-class New Yorkers; and enacted health care reform to cover all children. Governor Spitzer particularly focused on revitalizing New York’s economy and advancing an agenda for economic growth and opportunity. He reformed regulations to save businesses over $1 billion, making both Upstate and Downstate New York more competitive, and broke gridlock on key infrastructure and economic development projects, including the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site. His tenure would last less than two years after it was uncovered that he patronized a prostitution ring. He resigned immediately following the scandal, with the remainder of his term served by David Paterson, his lieutenant governor.

Since leaving the governorship, Spitzer has worked as a television host and an adjunct instructor at City College of New York, along with engaging in real estate activity and making private investments in a start-up company. He also ran for New York City Comptroller in 2013, losing the Democratic nomination to the eventual winner, Scott Stringer.