Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned his office on Wednesday after being linked to a prostitution ring, paving way for Lt.-Gov. David Paterson to take over as governor, the first black person to hold the post in the state’s history.

Spitzer announced that his resignation would be effective on Monday. Paterson was already reaching out to Democrats to lay the groundwork for his transition. Paterson would complete Spitzer's term, which ends Dec. 31, 2010.

Paterson, 53 years old, would also be only the third black governor in the nation since Reconstruction. The others are Deval Patrick, currently serving in Massachusetts who was elected in 2006, and L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia, who left office in 1994 and is currently Mayor of Richmond.

Paterson, who is legally blind, also would join a growing list of new black leaders in their early 50s, 40s and late 30s who are trying to redefine black leadership in a way that’s different from their predecessors, who started their public lives from the pulpit.

This generation of black leaders in notable for its youth, education and the fact that they are “cross-over” politicians—in the sense that they have tried to de-emphasize race in their political lives.

Among them are Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois is currently leading the race for the Democratic presidential nomination and Gov. Patrick of Massachusetts. Others are Rep. Artur Davis of Alabama and Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New Jersey.

On Monday in New York, the news about Spitzer’s involvement in a prostitution ring set off one of the largest scandals in modern state political history. During a news conference Monday afternoon, Spitzer, 48, apologized to his family and the public, but did not go as far as to explain why.

"I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family and violates my sense of right and wrong," he said in a brief statement. "I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself. I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family," he said alongside his wife, Silda Wall Spitzer, who was visibly upset as he spoke. The couple has three daughters together.

A law enforcement official told The Associated Press that Spitzer's involvement in the prostitution ring was caught on a federal wiretap. The official says Spitzer is identified in court papers as "Client 9," and the wiretap was part of an investigation that opened in the last few months.

The official says the New York governor met last month with at least one woman in a Washington hotel. The law enforcement official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.

With Spitzer’s resignation, attention now turns to Paterson and what kind of governor he would be. Paterson, a Democrat from Harlem, is well respected by Republicans and Democrats. His father, Basil Paterson, is a well-known labor lawyer, a former state senator and deputy mayor of New York City.

Former New York City Mayor Edward Koch recently called Paterson "very capable, not withstanding his near sightlessness. It's never impeded his public actions or his personal actions, and he's really overcome it in an extraordinary way."

According to reporter Ben Smith of Politico.com, Paterson, a former State Senator who evokes mixed feelings in New York political circles, and particularly in his native Harlem. Spitzer chose him based on his personal liking for, and confidence in, him -- a move that I wrote at the time demonstrated a "strong stomach for risk."

Smith, who profiled Paterson in the New York Observer in 2006, noted at the time that Paterson’s bid to be Eliot Spitzer’s candidate for Lieutenant Governor and campaign-trail partner was launched last month in a flurry of confusion and political intrigue.

It stunned his Harlem neighborhood, and left him for a few days opposed by a candidate who had been endorsed by his wife and father. And when things settled down, Mr. Paterson unsettled some of Mr. Spitzer’s supporters with a public promise of a “Paterson-Spitzer administration.”

Those who follow the Harlem Senator’s career were not surprised. Mr. Spitzer selected a man described as “a living contradiction” by one longtime associate. Indeed, Mr. Paterson’s 20 years in public life have been characterized by an array of contradictions, some of them openly stated, many irreconcilable. He’s a maverick champion of the younger generation whose Senate seat was handed to him, via a special election, by top Harlem Democrats allied with his powerful father, Basil Paterson. He’s a self-described reformer who spent nearly two decades in a comfortable political sinecure before launching a reform campaign as Senate Minority Leader.

The contradictions extend to his official biography: for years it stated, falsely, that he had been born and raised in Harlem, and it offered a shifting description of his legal career. His stance on a defining issue, the death penalty, is nuanced to the point of contradiction.

Mr. Paterson’s gifts—eloquence, penetrating intelligence, an immediate human connection and an inspiring story of overcoming near-total blindness—make him a natural running mate for the stiffer, privileged, decisive Mr. Spitzer. But the chaos that has followed him through public life makes him a natural choice in another way. Mr. Spitzer has a strong stomach for risk, and Mr. Spitzer’s campaign, according to Mr. Paterson, engaged in no real vetting of its lieutenant-governor candidate—a man who brings to the campaign a complicated relationship with the truth and a difficulty in saying no.

The AP said Paterson's disability has never been an issue in Albany in his 20-year political career. He has memorized lengthy, impassioned speeches without missing a mark; cited arcane legal references in fast-paced floor debates; and won more victories for his party in the Senate than any other leader in the Legislature. His efforts brought Democrats to within a seat of taking the Senate majority for the first time in decades.

Critics and supporters alike all point to the intellect, compassion and humor that Paterson brings to the Statehouse. When Spitzer picked him to be his running mate in 2006, Paterson deadpanned: "I told Eliot, `Whenever you are trying to reform a system, you need a person with vision and a person who is a technician,' and that's what I am ... because I sure don't have vision."

"He's going to bring love to the executive branch and Legislature," said Assemblyman Dov Hikind, a Brooklyn Democrat. "He's a real mensch, plain and simple."

Source: TNJ