Sean Patrick Maloney

Sean Patrick Maloney

Democratic

BACKGROUND: Maloney, 52, of Cold Spring, is a congressman who has represented part of the Hudson Valley for six years, after working in Albany under Govs. Eliot Spitzer and David A. Paterson. Maloney has a background steeped in private enterprise, law and government. He created a high-tech startup, was a partner in two global law firms, and held several positions in government including senior adviser to President Bill Clinton. Maloney is the first openly gay congressman from New York and is running for re-election to Congress in November at the same time he is seeking the Democratic nomination for state attorney general in September. He said he would decline the congressional nomination if he wins the attorney general primary because he feels he can do more good as attorney general.

ISSUES: Maloney says he has proved he can work across the aisle and has passed dozens of measures to benefit veterans, farmers and the elderly in Washington under a Republican-controlled House and what he calls “knuckleheads” in the tea party movement. In his first TV ad, staged at his home, he said, “I feel like there’s a group of men led by Donald Trump who have shown up in the front yard and they’re getting ready to tear this house apart. And I’m going to stand in the hallway with a baseball bat. Because I don’t have any choice. My kids are upstairs, asleep.” Maloney left the high-tech corporate world and a successful startup to return to public service in Albany and then in Washington. He departs a bit from his competitors by saying he would not only enforce laws on Wall Street, but work with corporations to produce jobs. He said he opposes Trump but said an attorney general must be guided not by politics or ideology, but by facts and the law.