Richard Ravitch

Richard Ravitch (2009)

Richard Ravitch (born July 7, 1933 in New York City ) is an American politician . From July 2009 to December 2010, he was Lieutenant Governor of New York State .

Career

Richard Ravitch graduated from the Columbia University belonging to Columbia College , where he studied American history. After a subsequent law degree at Yale University , he was admitted to the bar in 1958. In the meantime he also served for a short time in the United States Army . He then served on the House Government Operations Committee and the New York State Commission on Governmental Operations . From 1960 he worked in the family-owned construction company, which he sold in 1977. In the following decades he was a member of several organizations at the state and federal level, which dealt primarily with construction problems. In 1979 he became chairman of the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority , which is responsible for public transportation in the New York City area. There he set the course for the future development of the company. He received death threats during a strike in 1980. Then he got into the banking business and became president of the ailing Bowery Savings Bank , which was restructured under his leadership and then sold. Ravitch is also a partner in the law firm Ravitch, Rice & Co.

As a member of the Democratic Party , he ran unsuccessfully in the 1989 primary election for the office of Mayor of New York. In 2009 he was named Lieutenant Governor of New York State by Governor David Paterson . He held this office between July 8, 2009 and December 31, 2010. After Paterson and the acting successors Joseph Bruno , Dean Skelos , Malcolm Smith and Pedro Espada, he was the sixth lieutenant governor within a legislative period, but the second to do so Took over office in full. The situation was triggered by the resignation of Governor Eliot Spitzer and Paterson's promotion to the highest office in the state. After Paterson took office, terms of office of Senate presidents expired and a Senate crisis developed. Eventually, Ravitch was the last lieutenant governor appointed for this term. This step was also politically controversial, but was declared legal by the New York Court of Appeals . In 2012, Ravitch was co-chair of the State Budget Crisis Task Force , which analyzed the budget situation of five states.

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