Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York announced his candidacy for governor on Saturday, saying that he was seeking not only to lead New York but to remake a state mired in political scandal and paralyzed by financial crisis.
In a direct confrontation with a Legislature controlled by his own party, Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said he would pressure lawmakers this fall to state publicly whether they would embrace essential ethics changes, including disclosing their outside income, ceding control of redistricting to an independent panel and submitting to an outside ethics monitor
“The New York State government was at one time a national model,” said Mr. Cuomo, who made the announcement in two videos released by his campaign and a planned announcement in downtown Manhattan. “Now, unfortunately, it’s a national disgrace. Sometimes, the corruption in Albany could even make Boss Tweed blush.”
The approach underscores Mr. Cuomo’s determination to avoid the fate of the last two governors, David A. Paterson and Eliot Spitzer, who promised change but were quickly stymied by an obstinate Legislature, and later fell victim to their own scandals.
Mr. Cuomo said that “politicians of both parties, Democrats and Republicans, share the blame” for Albany’s rash of scandals and corruption. Further, he said the state government, which is controlled by fellow Democrats, “has failed and the people have the right, indeed the people have the obligation, to act.”
It may be a challenge for Mr. Cuomo, 52, to run against Albany, given his history: he is the son of former Gov. Mario M. Cuomo, for whom he served as political director, and has long ties to state politics.
But Mr. Cuomo is hoping to leverage his broad popularity and the relatively clear field he faces in the governor’s race to begin overhauling the state before next year.
His words will undoubtedly unsettle rank-and-file lawmakers within his party. And Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a legendarily shrewd strategist who has outmaneuvered many a governor, has been a fierce defender of the Legislature’s authority to police itself and set its own rules.
Wading for the first time into the current budget impasse, Mr. Cuomo also rejected a plan being pushed by Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch to borrow $6 billion over the next three years in exchange for a series of fiscal controls, including the creation of a financial review board.
“I will not delegate my responsibility to make the tough but essential financial decisions,” he said in one of the video messages.
He also spoke directly to New York’s powerful public employee unions, saying that he would freeze salary increases for state workers, and he said he opposed raising taxes. He proposed capping state spending and limiting local property tax increases to no more than 2 percent annually. But his announcement did not grapple with what will be the next governor’s greatest challenge: plugging a yawning budget deficit next year.
Mr. Cuomo made his bid official as Democrats prepared to open their state convention in Rye Brook on Tuesday. He had spent months of privately plotting the campaign.
His release of the videos, including a 21-minute segment in which he details his policy positions, is in part a response to criticism that he has ducked questions about what he would do as governor. That criticism has grown louder as the state’s economic condition has worsened.
In the longer of the two videos, he described his philosophy as “fiscally prudent and socially progressive” and focused mostly on his plans to reshape the government and rein in legislative excesses. His plan includes a proposal to eliminate 20 percent of the state’s more than 1,000 agencies, authorities, commissions and the like, part of a broad reorganization effort. He has already approached former Vice President Al Gore, who presided over a reinventing-government effort during the Clinton administration, to serve on a reorganization commission in New York.
He also laid out components of an economic agenda, including a plan to create a $3,000-a-head tax credit for businesses that hire unemployed New Yorkers.
Mr. Cuomo described his positions on social issues: He said he supports same-sex marriage, opposes the death penalty and supports increasing the number of charter schools. He pledged to fight discrimination and further women’s rights in the workplace.
The Republican primary for governor is expected to come down to a battle between two men: former Congressman Rick Lazio of Long Island and the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, who switched his party affiliation in March. Republicans hold their state convention early next month.
Mr. Cuomo begins his campaign bolstered by his popularity, at a time when few political figures in the state have much to cheer about in their poll numbers. In a Marist poll this month, 64 percent of voters said they believed Mr. Cuomo was doing either an excellent or good job.
Still, it is not clear how much voters know about Mr. Cuomo, beyond his family name. And in the longer video, Mr. Cuomo also struck a personal note. Appearing in an office, flanked by shelves of law books and photographs of his father, he linked the state’s need for revival to his own political and personal rebound.
Mr. Cuomo suffered a bruising setback in his abortive run for governor in 2002, when he dropped out of the race after it became clear he would not prevail against H. Carl McCall in a Democratic primary. That loss was followed by a bitter divorce from Kerry Kennedy, the mother of his three daughters.
“Sure it’s hard to come back,” Mr. Cuomo said. “I saw it in my own life. A few years ago I ran for governor and I lost, and I then went through a very difficult time in my personal life. It was a public humiliation.
“People said it was over for me; they said my public service career was finished, there was no way I could come back. Some days even I thought they were right,” he said, adding, “With the compassion and empathy of New Yorkers, you gave me a second chance.”
