David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is the 55th and current Governor of New York (List of Governors of New York). He is the first governor of New York of African American heritage and also the second legally blind (blindness) governor of any U.S. state after Bob C. Riley, who was Acting Governor of Arkansas (Governor of Arkansas) for 11 days in January 1975.

After graduating from Hofstra Law School, Paterson worked in the District Attorneys office (District Attorney) of Queens County, New York (Queens), and on the staff of Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins. In 1985, he was elected to the New York State Senate to a seat that was once held by his father, former New York Secretary of State Basil Paterson. In 2003, he rose to the position of Senate Minority Leader. Paterson was selected as running mate by then-New York Attorney General (New York State Attorney General) and Democratic Party (Democratic Party (United States)) nominee Eliot Spitzer in the 2006 New York gubernatorial election (New York gubernatorial election, 2006). Spitzer and Paterson were elected in November 2006 with 69 percent of the vote, and Paterson took office as Lieutenant Governor on January 1, 2007.cite news title=Elections 2006: Governor / New York work=CNN url=accessdate=2008-03-17

When Spitzer resigned in the wake of a prostitution scandal (Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal), Paterson was sworn in as governor of New York on March 17, 2008. Paterson initially intended to run for a full term in the 2010 gubernatorial election (New York gubernatorial election, 2010), but announced on February 26, 2010, that he would not be a candidate in the Democratic primary.