Thomas Richard Suozzi[1] (/ˈswɒzi/ SWOZ-ee; born August 31, 1962) is an American politician serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 3rd congressional district since 2024 and previously from 2017 to 2023.
[3] He retired from Congress to run again for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2022, losing to incumbent governor Kathy Hochul.
[5] After Congress expelled George Santos that December, a special election to fill the remainder of the term was scheduled for February 13, 2024.
[8] His father, Joseph A. Suozzi, who was born in Ruvo del Monte, Italy, was an attorney and served as Glen Cove mayor from 1956 to 1960.
His mother, Marguerite (née Holmes), of Irish and English descent, was an operating room nurse at Glen Cove Hospital.
[14][15] Suozzi returned to the private sector from 2010 to 2016, working as an attorney of counsel at Harris Beach, and as a consultant for Cablevision and Lazard.
By 1999, Nassau was on the brink of financial collapse: the county faced a $300 million annual deficit, was billions of dollars in debt, and its credit rating had sunk to one level above junk status.
[24] According to The New York Times, he "earned high marks from independent institutions for his signature achievement, the resuscitation of Nassau's finances.
In 2005, Governing Magazine named him one of its Public Officials of the Year, calling him "the man who spearheaded Nassau County, New York's, remarkable turnaround from the brink of fiscal disaster.
The campaign was funded in part by Home Depot co-founder Kenneth Langone, former NYSE CEO Richard Grasso, vice chairman of the MTA David Mack, and many people on Wall Street whom Spitzer had investigated and prosecuted.
[34] He strongly opposed a proposal by Governor Kathy Hochul to permit homeowners to add an accessory dwelling unit (such as an extra apartment and backyard cottage) on lots zoned for single-family housing.
[7][49][50][a] As the winner of the special election, Suozzi served out the remainder of Santos's term in the House, which expired in January 2025.
[58] In Congress, Suozzi authored legislation to restore the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, which was capped at $10,000 in 2017.
[61] Suozzi voted in favor of three military aid package supplementals for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan respectively in April 2024, along with most Democrats.
[66] In 2021, the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center filed a formal ethics complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics alleging that Suozzi had failed to file the reports required by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act of 2012 on approximately 300 different stock transactions with a value of $3.2 million to $11 million.
"[71] In July 2022, the U.S. House Ethics Committee said it had decided not to charge Suozzi for failing to file required reports on stock transactions on time because it was not a "knowing or willful" act.
The committee said its five Democratic and five Republican members unanimously voted to dismiss the referral from the independent federal Office of Congressional Ethics.
[72][73] In December 2022, Suozzi disclosed dozens of additional stock trades that were reported up to three years past the federal deadline.