Nelson Rockefeller

Rockefeller governed New York from 1959 to 1973 on a scale few states have matched: the State University of New York grew into the largest public university system in the country, he built the Albany Empire State Plaza and expanded Medicaid early. The bills came later in high taxes and debt. His 1973 drug laws imposed harsh mandatory sentences that filled prisons for decades, and he ordered the retaking of Attica prison in 1971, in which 39 people died. He became Gerald Ford's vice-president.