Product Code Database
Robert Abrams (born July 4, 1938) is an American attorney and politician. He served as the attorney general of New York from 1979 to 1993 and was the Democratic nominee for the 1992 United States Senate election in New York.
He was a delegate to the 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1984 Democratic National Conventions. At the 1972 Democratic National Convention, he was the co-chair of the New York delegation and was at the microphone to cast New York's 267 votes for George McGovern. In 1980, he was the chairman of Senator Edward M. Kennedy's primary campaign for president in New York and led a strong victory over incumbent President Jimmy Carter. In 1988, he was a presidential elector, voting for Michael DukakisLloyd Bentsen ticket.
During his tenure as attorney general, Abrams received numerous awards and honors and earned national prominence rarely achieved by a state-level official. He was elected president of the National Association of Attorneys General after serving as chairman of its Environment, Civil Rights and Anti-Trust Committees and was selected by his colleagues to receive the coveted Wyman Award as Outstanding Attorney General in the Nation. He was awarded honorary Doctor of Law degrees from Yeshiva University, Hofstra University, Long Island University and Pace University.
After narrowly losing the Senate race, despite making plans to run for re-election as state attorney general, Abrams announced his resignation from the office of attorney general on September 8, 1993, to take effect on December 31. He had a year left in his term.
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg appointed Abrams in 2005 to serve on the New York City Charter Revision Commission. In 2006, New York Governor-Elect Eliot Spitzer appointed Abrams to serve as co-chair of his Policy Advisory Committee on Governmental Reform for his Transition, and New York Attorney General-Elect Andrew Cuomo appointed him Executive Chair of his Transition Committee. In 2008, New York Governor David Paterson appointed Abrams to serve on the Board of the United Nations Development Corporation. On May 9, 2009, New York Governor David Paterson renamed the Justice Building at the Empire State Plaza in Albany the Robert Abrams Building for Law and Justice. Also in 2009, Attorney General elect Eric Schneiderman appointed Abrams to serve as Honorary Co-chair of his Transition Committee. In 2010, New York's chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, appointed him to be a member of the Advisory Council for the Retired Attorney Pro Bono Program.
In 2012, Governor Andrew Cuomo appointed Abrams as co-chairman of a Moreland Commission to investigate the preparedness and response of the utilities in New York State to Superstorm Sandy which took the lives of numerous New Yorkers and caused billions of dollars of damage. At the conclusion of its hearings and deliberations, the Commission released a report which resulted in changes to New York State law and practices by utilities.
He also served on numerous boards of community not for profit organizations: Fund for the City of New York, Citizens Union Board Member and President of the Citizens Union Foundation, America Israel Friendship League, and Council for a Secure America.
Abrams was a leader of the Soviet Jewry Movement in the United States. Serving as chairman of the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry, he attended several international conferences, in Paris where delegates met to plan strategy for the movement; in Brussels, where Golda Meir, U.S. Senator Frank Church, Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, and civil rights leader Bayard Rustin addressed the convocation; and in Jerusalem at a world plenum which addressed Soviet Jewish absorption issues in Israel. In 1991, Abrams delivered the Raoul Wallenberg Lecture in Moscow before several hundred leaders of Jewish communities from each of the fifteen republics of the USSR.
He also served on the corporate boards of Sterling Bancorp and Sterling National Bank for 18 years.
On October 16, 2018, Abrams and Public Advocate Letitia James (running for New York State Attorney General) were at the steps of New York City Hall for a press conference where he announced his endorsement of James in the race. James became the first woman and the first African American to be elected to the position of New York State Attorney General and appointed Abrams as co-chair of her transition team.
Abrams resolved a controversy between the Jewish community and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) concerning the church's proxy baptism practice. He established joint programs between the two communities, including initiating a joint Jewish-LDS delegation to visit Israel in 2016 to commemorate the 175th anniversary of LDS Apostle Orson Hyde's dedicatory prayer at the Mount of Olives declaring Jerusalem and its environs to be the land of the Jewish people. Abrams was presented with the Thomas L. Kane award by the J. Reuben Clark Law Society of the LDS Church on June 9, 2022, in Salt Lake City, in recognition of his leadership efforts.
In March 2021, Abrams' memoir, The Luckiest Guy in the World: My Journey in Politics, was published by Skyhorse Publishing.
Robert and Diane's second child Becky was born to them when Diane was 49 years old. They attribute her birth to a blessing they received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
|
|
