“The poll confirms what I heard from voters as I went around the state last week announcing my campaign. Voters are upset with Cuomo's rich man's budget that pays for tax cuts for the very wealthy by underfunding schools, transit, and aid to municipalities that is needed to pay for state mandates and relieve property taxes. They are angry about Cuomo's education agenda of high-stakes testing linked to Common Core and of aiding private charter schools over public schools that now must cut more staff and programs due to funding shortfalls. Environmentalists who want to ban fracking don't trust him. Unemployed and low-wage voters feel Cuomo can't even see them,” said Hawkins.

The Greens are part of the Global Climate Convergence, an international effort seeking “system change” to combat climate change. The convergence links the climate change issue to other movements for democratic rights and social change, from a $15 an hour minimum wage to immigrant rights to forgiving student debt and cutting the military budget.

"Along with deportations, the lack of protections for undocumented immigrants has had numerous other effects. Employers hire undocumented immigrants to work at wages below the minimum. Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Africans, and West Indians face suspicion, discrimination, and harassment in various parts of the U.S. regardless of their status. Civilian police forces in some states have been enlisted to question and round up suspected undocumented immigrants. Enacting and enforcing basic human rights and legal protections for the undocumented will correct these gross injustices," said Hawkins.

Standing in front of the (Boss) Tweed Court House, Howie Hawkins announced today in that he will run for Governor as the progressive alternative to the pro-austerity and anti-union policies of the Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo and his Republican challenger Rob Astorino.

Hawkins chose to announce in front of the NYC Board of Education to highlight his call for adequate funding for public schools and an end to high-stakes testing. Hawkins said, "High-stakes tests are designed to define the children, teachers, and schools of disadvantaged communities as failures in order to privatize their schools as charters for profit-seeking investors. Public schools are not for sale. It's time to stop the corporate privatization agenda."

Howie Hawkins supports state legislation (A909 and S2490A) to allow adult adoptees access to their original birth certificates.

Howie Hawkins announced today that he will run for Governor as the progressive alternative to the pro-austerity and anti-union policies of the Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo and his Republican challenger Rob Astorino. "I am calling for a Green New Deal for New York to establish the human right of all New Yorkers to economic security and prosperity, including decent jobs, living wages, publicly-funded health care, good public education from pre-K through college, and affordable housing, mass transit, and clean energy,” said Hawkins, a working Teamster who unloads trucks at night at UPS in Syracuse.

Howie Hawkins, who finished third in the 2010 Governor's race, will announce that he is again seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor.

 "The five conservatives on the Supreme Court believe that having a lot of money entitles the wealthy to use election laws to advance their agenda. They surely understand that recent decisions on campaign spending are bringing an end to the U.S. as a republic and replacing it with an oligarchy. The growing gap between the political power of the One Percent and the rest of us parallels the extreme economic gap between the One Percent and working people in the U.S.," said Howie Hawkins, Green candidate for Governor of New York (http://www.howiehawkins.org).

Hawkins will announce in the LCA press room in the Legislative Office Building in Albany on Wednesday, April 9, and take his campaign to Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, and New York City in the following days.

“The four men in a room have produced a rich man's state budget,” said Howie Hawkins, a Green candidate for Governor who is a working Teamster. 

“The average income of New York State's richest 1% is over 40 times greater than the average income of the 99%. But the leaders of both major parties want to make the rich even richer with hundreds of millions in tax cuts for the 1%. To pacify the 99%, they want to send small property tax rebate checks and rent tax credits to voters. But that's just a maybe – only if your municipality can afford to stay below the local tax cap without going broke,' Hawkins said. 

Hawkins called on state legislators to vote down the proposal. “The legislature should come back with a budget for the 99%,” said Hawkins.