THE FIRST FAMILY

ELIOT SPITZER was elected governor by the people of the state of New York on November 7, 2006. Today at noon, he will be inaugurated as our fifty-fourth governor.

In a speech he delivered on election night, Eliot said: “In a Spitzer administration, the road to responsive and responsible government will begin on Day One. It is a promise based not on false hopes or foolish pride, but on a simple notion of government that has been lost amid the bickering and partisanship of the last few years: the idea that if we work to give everyone the same opportunity — that if we ensure everyone plays by the rules — there is no limit to what we can achieve as a people.”

It is this promise of change and this vision for new governance and a brighter New York that we celebrate today.

Eliot has served for eight years as New York State attorney general, where his passionate pursuit of justice and the historic victories he won on behalf of ordinary, hard-working New Yorkers transformed a once moribund office.

Eliot’s historic accomplishments on behalf of the people of New York earned him national recognition. In 2002, after his landmark settlement with ten of the nation’s largest securities firms over charges of misleading investors, Time Magazine named Eliot “Crusader of the Year.”

Before he ran for attorney general, Eliot worked as an attorney in both the public and private sectors. As a prosecutor in the Rackets Bureau of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Eliot served as the lead attorney in a prominent case that broke the Gambino family’s stranglehold on the garment industry in New York.

After his first campaign for attorney general in 1994, he devoted much of his time to traveling the state from Montauk to Niagara Falls, getting to know the people of New York by visiting them in their cities, towns, and villages. He learned from them of the problems they face every day, and of the hopes they have for their futures—and the future of our state.

Eliot was born on June 10, 1959 in the Bronx. A graduate of Horace Mann Academy, Eliot received his undergraduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and his law degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, Eliot clerked for U.S. District Judge Hon. Robert W. Sweet. He also worked for the law firms Paul, Weiss, Rifkind; Wharton & Garrison; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

In his third year of law school, Eliot met his future wife, Silda Wall. They were married in New York City in 1987. In 1996, Eliot and Silda founded Children for Children, a not-for-profit that fosters community involvement and social responsibility in young people.

Eliot and Silda have three daughters: Elyssa, Sarabeth, and Jenna.