Invites Cuomo to Join him to tour Fracking in Pennsylvania

(Albany NY) Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins called on Governor Cuomo today to agree to participate in three televised debates.

Hawkins, a long time advocate on a ban on fracking for natural gas, also announced that he will touring fracking sites in Pennsylvania on Thursday. He offered Cuomo, who told anti-fracking activists recently that he would take a similar tour, to join him. Republican Astorino recently announced that he will tour fracking areas with pro-fracking advocates.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, is polling at a record high for a third party progressive candidate for Governor in NY according to a new Quinnipiac Poll. 

Hawkins is polling at 9%. Cuomo continues to fall in the polls, with only a bare majority (51%) now supporting him, raising the real possibility that most voters will reject him in November. 

The poll asked Hawkins' supporters who their second choice was. A majority indicated that if Hawkins was not running, they would vote for someone other than Cuomo.

(Syracuse, NY) The Green Party gubernatorial team of Howie Hawkins and Brian Jones called today for full funding of the New York State schools.

Funding provided by the Cuomo administration is now $9 billion less than required by court orders, leading to deep cuts for the Syracuse City School District schools and all throughout the State. This has resulted in ballooning class sizes, elimination of valuable programs, and fewer teachers. The share of the state budget going to education funding has fallen to its lowest level in 65 years.

(Syracuse, NY) Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, held a news conference today outside Governor Cuomo's media event for the Women's Equality Party (WEP) ballot line to say that Cuomo's economic policies are a slap in the face to working-class women he has neglected as Governor, especially women on welfare and minimum wage workers.

Green candidate Howie Hawkins raised $71,660.43 in the July 11 through September 29 reporting period, more than in his entire 2010 campaign. Hawkins' fundraising total for the entire campaign is $126,425, three times what Hawkins raised in 2010. In this filing period, Hawkins received contributions from 240 individuals, for a total of 911 in this year's campaign cycle.

"Our average donation in this filing cycle has been $69, and the median is $40. Governor Andrew Cuomo's average donation is one hundred times greater than ours. Today's filing makes clear that Andrew Cuomo is a Governor for New York's 1% -- that's who funds his campaign. Cuomo had 39 contributors. I had 240. This shows that more people are willing to invest what little money they have in our campaign and our vision for a progressive future for New York.

Hawkins Would Reinvest in New Yorkers and Local Community

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said that the budget letter issued to state agencies by the Cuomo administration shows that he intends to continue his austerity, trickle-down economic approach to state government.

"This budget directive makes clear that Cuomo intends to keep New York the leader in income inequality," stated Hawkins.

(Syracuse, NY) Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, called today for the state Wage Board to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

Hawkins noted that $15 an hour, adjusted for inflation, is less than the $2-an-hour minimum wage called for 50 years ago by A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King and others at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Adjusted for inflation, $2 would be $15.55 today.

Hawkins also told the wage board that it should join California and six other states in eliminating the tip credit that reduces the minimum wage. The Restaurant Opportunities Center United points out that tipped restaurant workers suffer from three times the poverty rate of the general population. The tipped minimum wage puts women in the compromising position of having to please clients and employers not matter how they may be mistreated since their livelihood depends on their tips. That is one of the reasons why the New York State chapter of the National Organization for Women has called for its elimination.

Hawkins Calls for Action on Desegregation in Westchester, Statewide

While Governor Cuomo and his Republican challenger exchanged barbs over a housing discrimination case in Westchester County, Green Party gubernatorial candidate announced two measures he would take as Governor to desegregate New York's housing and schools, which are the most segregated in the nation by both race and income.

“I will establish a cabinet-level Civil Rights Department to strengthen enforcement fair housing and anti-discrimination laws and initiate a new public housing program to build in both the cities and the suburbs humanly-scaled, scatter-site, mixed-income, clean energy public housing developments that will improve the quality of life in any community in which they are built,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said that Astorino is wrong to resist HUD's 2009 fair housing settlement in Westchester County, but that Cuomo has been wrong as well for doing nothing to desegregate New York.

“The enforcement of civil rights in the education, housing, and labor departments of state government has taken a back seat to other missions assigned to these departments,” Hawkins said. “The result has been a steadily growing increase in segregation of housing and schools by both race and class since the 1960s in New York. We are now shamefully the most segregated state in the nation. We need a cabinet-level Civil Rights Department to focus on this problem. It should constituted as a law enforcement agency with an independent funding source and the power to streamline procedures and cut across government agency jurisdictions to get the job done.”

“Enforcement of anti-discrimination laws is not enough to desegregate New York. It has taken decades of discrimination to build the segregated housing and schools we now have in New York. We need to pro-actively open up housing and schools to diverse populations. The new public housing program I propose is needed to begin desegregating our residential patterns. It will also serve as a jobs program, an affordable housing program, and a clean energy program,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins has a plank on Civil Rights and Racial Justice in his platform that addresses these issues in more detail at www.howiehawkins.org/platform.

Former Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Randy Credico appears in court today to face charges for videotaping police in August.

The Green Party candidate for Governor, Howie Hawkins, called today for all charges against Credio to be dismissed.