Hawkins for Auditor

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today in Rochester that by any fair and objective standard, he should be included in debates with Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Republican challenger, Rob Astorino.

After the strong protest vote in the Democratic Party, Governor Cuomo reversed course yesterday and said he was open to debates in the general election. But he indicated that he preferred debates only with his conservative Republican challenger.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that the stunningly high vote total against Cuomo in the Democratic Primary shows that many New Yorkers reject his conservative economic policies.

Hawkins will also hold a statewide call with the media on Sept. 10 at 2:00 PM to discuss the primary and the upcoming general election. http://www.howiehawkins.org/media_conference_call_with_howie_hawkins

He congratulated Zephyr Teachout on running a strong, spirited campaign challenging Cuomo's record.

The Green New Deal is an emergency program of specific solutions for climate change that uses conversion to a green economy to generate millions of new jobs (http://www.jillstein.org/green_new_deal). It was the basis of Green nominee Jill Stein's campaign for president in 2012. Dr. Stein is one of the featured speakers in the NYC Climate Convergence.

Green candidates have continued to promote the Green New Deal, which was introduced by Howie Hawkins during his 2010 New York gubernatorial campaign. Mr. Hawkins is running for governor again in this year's election (http://www.howiehawkins.org).

"The fight against climate change isn't just a call for a few new policies. We need an overhaul of our political and economic system," said Matt Funiciello, Green candidate for the U.S. House in New York's 21st District (http://mattfunicielloforcongress.org).

"Action against the climate crisis has been stymied by pressure from the same special business interests that are wrecking our economy, depressing wages, and pressing Congress and the White House to repeal labor rights and protections. They intend to make a killing on scarcity caused by climate change through privatization of water and other public resources. The Democratic and Republican parties continue to accede to their demands. The Green Party represents the political front against the two-party corporate-money political establishment that is allowing the brunt of the environmental and economic crisis to fall on working people and the poor," said Mr. Funiciello.

Hawkins and Jones Say Education is a Basic Human Right

The Green Party gubernatorial team of Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones said today that education is a basic human right. They support expanding public education from early childhood through college and support statewide universal full day Pre-K and Kindergarten with certified and unionized educators.

"We will continue to stand with teachers and public school advocates to 1) oppose the corporate takeover and privatization of education and 2) expand education funding to meet our children's needs and so that teachers can teach," said Howie Hawkins.

$15 Minimum Wage, A Guaranteed Job, Health Care for All, Organizing Rights

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said that as Governor he would unilaterally raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour. “The raise will inject billions of dollars into the purchasing power of the state's working class. That would be far more effective in stimulating the state's economy than Governor Cuomo squandering public money on tax breaks for big business and the rich,” Hawkins said. 

Hawkins also said that the state should guarantee every New Yorker a living wage job. He would create a public works program, as well as investing in transitioning the state's energy system to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030.  A peer-reviewed study in the journal Energy Policy projects that such an energy program would create 4.5 million jobs. Jobs and training would be guaranteed to existing current workers in the fossil fuel and nuclear industries.

 "If the private sector can't provide a decent job to everyone who needs one, the public sector will. Rather than an unemployment office, we will have an employment office that provides jobs," aid Hawkins.

by Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones, Green Party candidates for New York Governor and Lt. Governor.

The 1% owns two parties. Working people need one of our own.

As a working Teamster and a union Teacher running for Governor and Lt. Governor in New York State on the Green ticket, we are as committed to organizing an independent working people's party as we are to the pro-labor policies in our platform.

Our platform, A Green New Deal for New York, calls for economic human rights that are long sought but unfulfilled in our society. It renews the call for the economic human rights that President Franklin Roosevelt raised in his 1944 State of the Union address when he urged Congress to enact a second, economic bill of rights. The civil rights movement renewed the call in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the 1966 Freedom Budget for All Americans, and the 1968 Poor People's Campaign, but improved the call with the addition that our schools and housing must be desegregated. As the freedom movement turned from civil rights to economic rights, it understood that separate is inherently unequal and that no sub-group of working people is secure in its political and economic rights until all of us are secure.

Hawkins, Union Activist for Governor, to Make in Rochester Labor Day Parade Tonight, 5:30 PM

Howie Hawkins, the Teamster member who is running for Governor, will march in the Labor Day parade in Rochester on Friday August 29.

Hawkins has campaigned to raise the state minimum wage to $15 an hour, and to enable local communities to approve a higher wage to reflect local living costs. Hawkins has called on a crackdown on employers who engage in wage theft, which cost low-income workers in New York more than a billion dollars a years.

I have been clear throughout my campaign this year, as I was in my 2010 campaign, that as Governor I will ban fracking and will work to build a 100% clean renewable energy system by 2030 in New York State.

I have been clear that I oppose all new investments in fossil fuel infrastructure, including new natural gas power plants and pipelines, the proposed liquified natural gas export facility at Port Ambrose, the proposed storage of natural gas and liquified propane and butane gas in the salt caverns next to Seneca Lake, and the proposed boilers to heat crude oil for transfer from trains to tankers and barges at the Port of Albany. I want a moratorium on crude oil "bomb" trains through New York State for safety reasons.

Investments in fossil fuel infrastructure locks us into decades more reliance on energy that is heating the planet and more expensive than clean renewables. It is time to make the smart investments in clean energy that will create millions of manufacturing and construction jobs, lower energy costs, and put New York State in the leadership of the energy transition the world must make to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, called today for an open debate with his gubernatorial opponents on the issue of corruption.

The issue of Astorino's patronage habit came to light today when one of his high priced aides resigned after being arrested for DWI involving the use of a county vehicle that was in an accident. The aide, Hugh Fox, is chair of the County Conservative Party and was paid $105,000 by the county.

Hawkins pointed to a Newsday article that documented the hiring by Astorino of more than a dozen politically connected individuals by Westchester County at the same time Astorino was cutting 70 county employees.

"When I campaigned in White Plains earlier this month, the county employees I met were still angry about Astorino laying off county workers at the same time he was hiring high-priced political cronies," said Hawkins.

Calls for Moratorium on Oil Shipment by Rail and No Tar Sands Oil in New York

Howie Hawkins said today that he endorsed the protest by PAUSE, Green Party of NY and others at the Governor's mansion in opposition to the oil bomb trains in NY, especially in the South End of Albany.

Hawkins, the Green Party nominee for Governor, said oil trains in New York are a rolling environmental injustice. "Their route takes within a few feet of a public housing complex in Albany as well as near Native lands. Why has Cuomo and the DEC violated its own guidelines for environmental justice assessments when it comes to oil processing and shipping?"

Hawkins said as Governor that he would issue an Executive Order halting all transport of crude oil by rail in the state and would use law enforcement if necessary to carry out this order. Safe transport of crude oil through populated areas is not possible. The National Transportation Safety Board has recommended that the Federal Railroad Administration require railroads to "avoid populated and other sensitive areas" for crude oil and other hazardous materials. Yet in Albany they pass a few feet from residents in housing projects in the South End.