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Paterson's new senior adviser will be a 'No' man

DAN JANISON | dan.janison@newsday.com

April 14, 2008

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As Albany's sudden transition keeps churning the executive personnel at the Capitol, Long Island lawyer William J. Cunningham III is preparing to become a kind of "No" man.

At least, that's how his fans like to tell it. Democratic insiders expect that as senior adviser to Gov. David A. Paterson, Cunningham will take on the role of vetting ideas and strategies. Precise duties of his $170,000 post remain hazy, but sources call him "sounding board," "minister without portfolio" and "confidant" - the opposite of a "Yes" man.

Cunningham, 56, is a longtime friend of Basil Paterson, the governor's father. They worked together until 2002 at the Garden City law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English and Klein, where Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi's father, Joseph Suozzi, is a prominent partner.

"I've known the governor for about 15 years," Cunningham told Newsday. "I got to know David through his dad. I'd say one of the things David and I have as a common bond is we both love his parents Basil and Portia. ... Our paths would cross frequently enough that on Inauguration Day he [the governor] asked to speak with me and took me aside. I met with him the following week."

Cunningham won't oversee agencies but will take on varied projects and, as he puts it, "specific issues as they arise." He's known major-league political tempests. In 2001, fresh from serving as campaign treasurer in Hillary Rodham Clinton's first Senate run, he was thrust into a controversy over two Arkansas clients who received criminal pardons from the departing President Bill Clinton. They'd been referred, he said, by Clinton adviser Harold Ickes, Cunningham's law associate at Meyer Suozzi - whose labor practice Ickes co-chairs with Basil Paterson, while working for the Clinton campaign. Lightheartedly, he recalls that for all the furor, the firm collected a fee of $4,100 for the case.

Thomas Suozzi plucked Cunningham from the firm in 2002 to be his chief deputy. The Paterson hire was announced last Monday - just as Suozzi fervently disputed rumors that he planned to run a primary to replace Paterson in 2010. Suozzi calls the departing Cunningham "an enormously talented person dedicated to public service." He called the appointment "great" for Cunningham, Paterson, Long Island and the state.

Pushed by Suozzi in 2003, Cunningham ran a Democratic primary for county executive in Suffolk. (He lives in Bay Shore with his wife, Terry, a librarian at St. Peter's School). That contest ignited a cross-border clash with Steve Levy, who ultimately won, and his ally Richard Schaffer, the Suffolk Democratic chairman. Both men insist bygones are just that.

MICRO-TREND. Unlike Eliot Spitzer's team, a notable number of top Paterson aides have run for elected office - Cunningham, Jon R. Cohen, Carl Andrews and James Yates.

NOT HIM: Another Bill Cunningham worked for Govs. Hugh Carey and Mario Cuomo, Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan and Mayor Mike Bloomberg. He's with Dan Klores Associates.