Biography

In November 2010, Senator Skelos was re-elected to his fourteenth term in the New York State Senate.   He now serves as the chamber’s Majority Leader, making him the highest-ranking Republican official in State government.

Before assuming the responsibilities of Majority Leader, he held the position of Senate Republican Leader, where he was an outspoken voice for lower taxes, less government spending and a renewed emphasis on private sector job creation.

Senator Skelos was also elected by his colleagues to be Majority Leader of the Senate in June 2008.  Later that year, he sponsored and passed Senate legislation to enact a property tax cap in an effort to give New York taxpayers relief from high property taxes.

In August 2008, Senator Skelos worked with the Governor and other legislative leaders to pass consensus legislation that reduced the size of the State’s budget deficit by more than $1 billion to allow New York to responsibly deal with the national economic recession and maintain a balanced budget.

As the author of Megan’s Law, Senator Skelos created the New York State Sex Offender Registry and authored numerous measures strengthening this powerful statute, including the Workplace and Campus Registration acts and laws establishing lifetime registration for dangerous sexual predators and posting information and photos about more sex offenders on the internet. In 2008, Senator Skelos worked with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to enact the new e-STOP law which prevents registered sex offenders from accessing social networking websites, including MySpace and Facebook, and prohibiting online communication between sex offenders and children.

In addition, Senator Skelos wrote laws eliminating the statute-of-limitations in cases of rape and violent sexual assault and, to further assist law enforcement, dramatically expanding the state’s DNA Databank. To fight fraud, waste and abuse in the state’s Medicaid program and save billions of dollars for state and local taxpayers, Senator Skelos authored the nation’s most sweeping Medicaid fraud law in 2006.

Senator Skelos also wrote the law eliminating the unfair New York City “Commuter Tax” and, during his tenure as the Senate Aging Committee Chairman, the law creating the Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage (“EPIC”) program.

As the Chairman of the Senate’s NextGen Task Force, Senator Skelos wrote a comprehensive plan that resulted in the enactment of various tax credits and other incentives designed to promote the creation of high-paying jobs in the fields of high-technology and biotechnology. Moreover, Senator Skelos developed the landmark HELP program and passed the Long Island Workforce Housing Act to make homeownership more affordable for Long Islanders, the New York State Center for Excellence and Innovation in Homeland Security and, in 2002, the $71.5 million Long Island Biotech Investment and Job Creation Program.

Prior to his election to the State Senate in 1984, Senator Skelos represented New York State’s 19th Assembly District for two years.

Born, raised and educated in Rockville Centre, he graduated from South Side High School, Class of 1966. In 1970, Senator Skelos received a B.A. in History from Washington College in Maryland and, after attending at night, graduated from Fordham University School of Law with a Juris Doctorate Degree in 1975.

He lives with his wife Gail in Rockville Centre and has a grown son, Adam.