By David Bositis
Senior Research Associate
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

David Paterson, New York state’s lieutenant governor, will move into the state’s top job next week after Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s resignation takes effect on Monday, March 17.

Paterson (D-NY) is the third African American elected governor in the history of the United States.  Douglas Wilder (D-VA), elected in 1989, was the first black governor, and Deval Patrick (D-MA), elected in 2006 was the second.  David Paterson, running with Elliot Spitzer, was elected lieutenant governor of New York in 2006.

David Paterson was first elected to office in 1985 representing a state senate district, which had been represented by his father, Basil Paterson, who was the first African American to hold statewide office in New York after being appointed secretary of state by Governor Hugh Carey in 1979.

David Paterson rose through the ranks in the state senate to become the senate minority leader before being tapped by Spitzer as his running mate in 2006.  He is not only distinguished by being the first black governor of New York, he is also legally blind, which makes him the first governor in U.S. history with that disability.

H. Carl McCall was the first African American elected to statewide office, when he became state comptroller in 1994.

In Indiana, Andre Carson, a City-County Council member from Indianapolis, won the right to succeed his grandmother, the late Rep. Julia Carson, in the final 10 months of her term in Congress.

Democrat Carson defeated Republican state Rep. Jon Elrod in a special election Tuesday by winning 54 percent of the vote. A primary will be held in May to decide who will run in the November election for a full term representing Indiana’s seventh district.