WRVO (NPR, SUNY Oswego), July 9, 2018

Protesters demonstrate outside of the Syracuse Institute of Technology, where President Donald Trump’s daughter and advisor Ivanka Trump attended a round table. CREDIT PAYNE HORNING / WRVO NEWS

Outside of the roundtable, a crowd gathered to protest Trump’s visit. Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins says he demonstrated to oppose the Trump administration’s education policies, including supporting charter schools and rolling back Obama-era regulations meant to protect minorities.

“Instead of using our schools as a prop, Ivanka Trump should be back there in White House, where she’s a senior advisor, trying to convince her father to stop these abusive policies toward children,” Hawkins said.

For immediate release: July 9, 2018

Hawkins Joins Syracuse Protest of Ivanka Trump

Says Trump Administration Guilty of Child Abuse

(Syracuse) Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, will join with other Central New York residents in protesting at Ivanka Trump’s Monday appearance in Syracuse. The protest, organized by the CNY Solidarity Coalition, Syracuse Students for Change, Syracuse Cultural Workers and others, will take place at Trump’s closed-door meeting at the P-Tech school at the Institute of Technology in Syracuse at noon, 

“Ivanka Trump's visit to a school should not distract us from the child abuse that her father’s immigration policy is perpetrating with family separations, indefinite detentions, and deportations without due process of desperate people fleeing violence and seeking asylum. Her visit should not distract us from the profit-seeking privatization of public schools and the elimination of federal standards that protect the rights of children who are ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, or disabled, which Donald Trump's appallingly ignorant Education Secretary, Betsy Devos, is pursuing. If Ivanka Trump cared about children, she would be back in the White House convincing her father to change these extremely abusive policies toward children.,” said Hawkins.

“Ivanka Trump and her father are subjects of a complaint by the New York Attorney General’s office to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission for self-dealing and illegally campaign spending with Trump Foundation assets. If Governor Cuomo would just ask the Attorney General’s office to do a criminal investigation of these matters, under New York law the Attorney General could then open an investigation that would lead to the public release of Trump’s tax returns. The public interest would be served by releasing those tax returns. Ivanka Trump's PR stunt using one of our public school as a prop serves the interest of no one but the Trump crime family," added Hawkins.

Michael Sussman is the Green Party candidate for Attorney General.

Urban CNY, July 7, 2019

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that Governor Cuomo needs to stop protecting President Trump and authorize State Attorney General Barbara Underwood to formally investigate Trump and his foundation.

Hawkins also said that Cuomo needs to immediately return the $64,000 he has received in campaign donations from Trump. “We need a Governor who has some sense of ethics and principles, who doesn’t feel compelled to solicit money from every special interest that wants to curry his favor. He needs to stop collecting tribute from the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street and real estate industries who view a donation to Cuomo as the price to opening up the state’s piggy bank,” noted Hawkins. Hawkins has long advocated for a ban on pay-to-play campaign contributions and an enactment of a Clean Money full public campaign finance program.

The Riverdale Press (Bronx), July 7, 2018

To the editor:

In a Quinnipiac University poll released May 2, Gov. Andrew Cuomo was preferred by 50 percent, and Cynthia Nixon by 28 percent. Another 22 percent were undecided.

I’m not surprised by the lack of support for Nixon. But I’m glad that (if the poll is accurate) Cuomo is receiving less support than in the past.

Nixon, a friend of Mayor Bill de Blasio, recently claimed that transit repairs cost so much because workers’ salaries were too high. Transit workers finally got a decent contract after decades of real money pay cuts.

So Nixon did not object to all the Scrooge-like contracts that Cuomo gave to state workers, only the decent one he negotiated for transit workers. You can see why she and de Blasio, who’s given the city’s unionized workers nothing but real money pay cuts, like each other.

I’m guessing the 22 percent undecided is misleading. I was asked recently in a telephone poll who I would choose. I said neither of them. Was I counted as undecided? I will vote for the same man as I did in the last two gubernatorial elections, the Green Party’s Howie Hawkins.

NY State of Politics, July 6, 2018

Howie Hawkins believes there’s an opening for the Green Party in the race for governor, whether or not Cynthia Nixon remains in the race after the Sept. 13 Democratic primary against Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Hawkins, in a fundraising appeal on Friday, noted that Cuomo, Nixon and independent candidate Stephanie Miner, all backed Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

At the same time, the Working Families Party with Nixon as its nominee in November would continue to be part of a broader project to push Democrats to the left, Hawkins argued.

“All three self-styled “progressive” Democrats – Cuomo, Miner, and Nixon – may be running on different ballot lines this year, but they all supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the (2016) New York presidential primary,” the email stated. “If Nixon loses the Democratic primary but stays on the Working Families Party line for November, she will still be a Democrat pursuing the Working Families Party strategy of influencing the Democratic Party. Of all six tickets on the November ballot, only the Green Party is building an independent party of the left to beat, not just influence, the corrupt two-party system of corporate rule.”

For immediate release: July 6, 2018

Hawkins Calls on Cuomo to Empower AG to Investigate Trump

Urges Cuomo to Return $64,000 in Donations from Donald Trump

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that Governor Cuomo needs to stop protecting President Trump and authorize State Attorney General Barbara Underwood to formally investigate Trump and his foundation.

Hawkins also said that Cuomo needs to immediately return the $64,000 he has received in campaign donations from Trump. “We need a Governor who has some sense of ethics and principles, who doesn’t feel compelled to solicit money from every special interest that wants to curry his favor. He needs to stop collecting tribute from the fossil fuel industry, Wall Street and real estate industries who view a donation to Cuomo as the price to opening up the state’s piggy bank,” noted Hawkins. Hawkins has long advocated for a ban on pay-to-play campaign contributions and an enactment of a Clean Money full public campaign finance program.

On June 14, the State Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Trump and his foundation. The petition “alleges a pattern of persistent illegal conduct, occurring over more than a decade, that includes extensive unlawful political coordination with the Trump presidential campaign, repeated and willful self-dealing transactions to benefit Mr. Trump’s personal and business interests, and violations of basic legal obligations for non-profit foundations. “

For immediate release: July 3, 2018

July 4: Green Party Says it is Time to Declare Independence from Fossil Fuels

As New York suffers through a prolonged heat wave this July 4, the Green Party candidates for Governor and State Comptroller reminded New Yorkers of the need to declare independence from fossil fuel companies.

The Greens said that New York should become the second state after Rhode Island to file suit against the oil and gas companies for the damage they are causing by driving global warming. New York City has already filed suit. They added that New York should become the first state to commit to halt all new fossil fuel infrastructure and commit to transitioning to 100% clean energy and net zero carbon emissions by 2030.

“The fossil fuel companies use their wealth and campaign contributions to buy our elected officials. Despite Cuomo’s massive war chest, he quickly backtracked from his recent statement that he would stop taking donations from the fossil fuel industry. He says that he will stop any more fossil fuel plants moving forward but yet he continues to want to spend $88 million of our tax dollars to build two new gas turbines to burn fracked gas to power the state capitol, subjecting low-income neighbors to decades more of pollution,” noted Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor.

“Cuomo should immediately pull the permits for the Competitive Power Ventures fracked-gas power plant in Orange County because it will add 10% to the state’s carbon footprint. The fact that the permitting was greased through with bribes from CPV to top Cuomo aide Joe Percoco gives Cuomo another good reason to do the right thing, right now,” Hawkins continued.

WBAI, Advocating for Justice, July 2, 2018

Audio

Howie Hawkins was a guest along with Mark Dunlea, Green for state Comptroller, on WBAI's "Advocating for Justice" hosted by Arthur Schwartz. Discussion covered the issues of the campaign and much of the program focused on how the independent left and progressives in the Democratic Party should relate to each other in the context of the Green Party's 5% share of the gubernatorial vote in 2014 and this year's highly publicized challenge to Cuomo by Cynthia Nixon and the recent the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset win for Congress in a Bronx/Queens district.

Capitol Pressroom, July 2, 2018

Audio

Howie Hawkins, Green Party nominee for Governor, is critical of economic development programs like the Buffalo Billion, because funding from the programs hasn’t gone to the communities that need it the most. Hawkins explained his position and his alternatives to the state’s economic development programs.

WBAI, June 30, 2018

Audio

Howie Hawkins discusses U.S. immigration policy and the 2018 New York gubernatorial race at the End Family Separations march in New York City on June 30, 2018.