by Howie Hawkins

May Day, or International Workers Day, is celebrated with marches and rallies every May 1 to lift up the working people and their demands for freedom, equality, and justice. That is the Red tradition of May Day. But there is also an older Green tradition that cultures the world over celebrate as Spring arrives in temperate and arctic climates and the wet season arrives in tropical climates. This Green tradition of May Day celebrates all that is free and life-giving on the green Earth that is our common wealth and heritage. These Red and Green May Day traditions are complementary.

Legislative Gazette, April 30, 2018

Two gubernatorial hopefuls marched with more than 1,000 climate change protesters to call on the Cuomo administration to implement more environmentally friendly policies, starting with a new microgrid project that heats and cools the Empire State Plaza.

Called the “Walk the Talk on Climate,” the event was the latest — and largest — in a series of attempts to push the governor to adopt greener environmental policies for New York state. According to the rally’s organizers, the walk had three distinct goals: Stop all fracking infrastructure projects, move to 100 percent renewable energy and make corporate polluters pay.

Attendees at the rally included Howie Hawkins, the Green Party’s nominee for governor, and “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon who is looking to challenge Cuomo in the Democratic primary in September.

Both Hawkins and Nixon champion environmental policies that echo the three goals of the rally they attended, though only Hawkins spoke, citing the seriousness of climate change.

“If we don’t rapidly transition off of fossil fuels, the resulting climate catastrophe means mass extinctions, the collapse of ocean and land ecosystems, and flooding of the world’s cities and bread-basket deltas,” Hawkins said.

Also representing the Green Party at the march were Co-Chair of the Green Party of New York Gloria Matter and Mark Dunlea, a GPNY organizer and member of the State Committee.

For immediate release: April 30, 2018

Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor, will make an appearance in Albany Police Court on Monday, April 30. Hawkins was one of 55 people arrested at the April 23 Cuomo Walk the Talk protest at the State Capitol on climate change. A number of the protestors have a court appearance at 9 AM at 1 Morton Ave.

The protestors called upon Cuomo to support 100% clean energy as soon as possible (Hawkins supports a target date of 2030); a ban on new fracked-gas/fossil-fuel infrastructure; and a state carbon tax.

Hawkins and the Green Party have long advocated for a Green New Deal, which is a full employment program with a public guarantee of a living wage job that begins with transitioning to 100% clean energy by 2030. It would also invest in a sustainable economy based on health care, education, environmental infrastructure, housing, and regenerative agriculture.

Hawkins will be available for media interviews.

For immediate release: April 28, 2017

Hawkins will call for:

• Closure of the CPV Plant and Move to 100% Clean Energy by 2030

• Replacement of Plurality Winner Elections with Ranked Choice Voting for Governor

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, will make several campaign stops in the Orange and Dutchess counties on Saturday, April 28.

Hawkins will be available for media questions and interviews at each stop or by phone during the day.

Hawkins schedule for the day:

8:15 am -- Interview with Joel Tyner on WHVW.com 950 AM.

11:00 am - CPV Plant Picket: Hawkins will join weekly picket organized by Protect Orange County against Competitive Power Ventures (CPV) Power Plant off County Route 6 in the Town Of Wawayanda. Hawkins was one of 55 demonstrators arrested Monday for a sit-in outside Governor Cuomo's office in the State Capitol Building where they demanded Cuomo support a halt to new fracked-gas infrastructure and a commitment to 100% clean energy. Hawkins supports the Holyman-Colton bill (S.5908/A.5105), which would require the state to plan a transition to 100% renewable energy by 2030.

12:30 pm - Saffron Indian Restaurant, 130 Dolson Ave., Middletown. Hawkins will be joined by David Heller, a Fair Vote proponent of Ranked Choice Voting. Hawkins will outline his policy platform. Heller will demonstrate how Ranked Choice Voting works, a reform that Hawkins has long supported. RCV enables people to rank the candidates in order of preference: 1, 2, 3, … RCV enables people to vote for their most favored candidate and ensures the winner is the most favored candidate with majority support. The current plurality wins system pressures voters to choose the "lesser evil" rather than the "spoiler" candidate they most prefer. Hawkins says RCV is the answer to Democrats who say his candidacy could split the center-left vote and lead to the plurality election of a conservative who is in fact less favored by the whole electorate than candidates in the center and left.

3:30 pm - Meet and Greet at Rhinebeck Repair Cafe, Rhinebeck Town Hall, 80 East Market St., Rhinebeck. Hawkins, Heller, and Steve Greenfield, the Green candidate for the 19th congressional district seat, will discuss the Green platform. Hawkins supports the proposed statewide ban on single-use plastic bags. He also calls for a phase-out of all single-use plastics over 5 years to protect ocean species and ecosystems that are threatened by plastic waste in the oceans.

5:00 pm - Traghaven Irish Whiskey Pub, 66 Broadway, Tivoli. Hawkins, Heller, and Steve Greenfield, the Green candidate for the 19th congressional district seat will again discuss the Green platform and Ranked Choice Voting.

Hawkins is asking for the formal designation of the Green Party at its May 19 convention in Albany.

Hawkins endorsed Jia Lee for the Green designation for Lieutenant Governor when she announced her candidacy on on Wednesday at Union Square in New York City. Lee is a 17-year veteran public school teacher in New York City. She a leader in the Opt Out movement against high-stakes testing and was the candidate of the Movement of Rank-and-File Educators (MORE) for UFT president in 2016. She is calling for full funding of public schools, desegregation of the state's most segregated schools in the nation, and an end to high-stakes testing and the conversion high-poverty public schools into privately-managed charter schools.

Newsday, April 27, 2017

Sliwa’s celebrity power in New York City could attract the 50,000 votes needed to give the Reform Party an automatic line on ballots for the next four years, ending the expensive and difficult effort to securing thousands of signatures for petitions to be placed on ballots statewide.

Environmental activist Howie Hawkins did just that four years ago for the liberal Green Party, and he is running again this year. Last time, he attracted more than 184,000 votes and moved the party to the fourth line on the ballot, behind Democrats, Republicans and the liberal Working Families Party. Hawkins attracts liberal voters, and his appeal to them could hurt Cuomo or his Democratic primary opponent, activist and actress Cynthia Nixon, in November.

“Progressives need to raise our expectations and demand more,” Hawkins said. He is calling for single-payer health care for all, more school aid, a ban on new fossil fuel plants and pipelines, and “100 percent clean renewable energy within 15 years.”

Spectator USA, April 26, 2018

by Bill Kaufman

Given also the energetic campaigns of Green Party stalwart Howie Hawkins and the Libertarian candidate, African American businessman Larry Sharpe, Cuomo’s share of the statewide vote will likely dip below 50 per cent.

Popular Resistance, April 25 2018

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was protested in Albany on April 23 over his policies on the environment and climate change. Fifty-six people were arrested, among them Green candidate for governor, Howie Hawkins.

For immediate release: April 25, 2018

NEW YORK, 4/25/2018--Jia Lee, a New York City special education teacher of seventeen years, announced today that she will seek the Green Party nomination for Lt. Governor. She will make education the focal point of her campaign.
 
Lee, a public school parent, was the Movement of Rank and File Educators (MORE) candidate for president of the United Federation of Teachers union in 2016. She has served as her school’s union chapter leader for over eight years. She has been active in NYC Opt Out and Change the Stakes, a grassroots coalition of parents, teachers and community members who are concerned with the destructive use of high-stakes standardized testing. In 2016, she testified before the U.S. H.E.L.P. Senate Committee on the re-authorization of E.S.E.A. (the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) on Testing and Accountability. 
 
“As many of us have come to realize, teaching is a political activity now, more than ever. Public schools, our profession and our students are under attack by the state. As a public school special education teacher, the curriculum I am told to teach my fourth and fifth grade students, flies in direct contradiction with the realities we are living,” said Lee.

Albany Times Union, April 24, 2018

Photo: SKIP DICKSTEIN, Albany Times Union

Green Party gubernatorial candidate, Howie Hawkins participates in a Walk the Talk on Climate! Day of Action rally as they prepare to march on the State Capitol building on Monday April 23, 2018 in Albany, N.Y.

 

ALBANY — Activists from around the state rallied Monday at the site of a proposed gas turbine power plant in the city's Sheridan Hollow neighborhood.

From there, they marched to the Capitol for a rally called the "Cuomo: Walk the Talk on Climate! Day of Action."

Sponsors include the Sheridan Hollow Alliance for Renewable Energy, Citizen Action of New York, Food and Water Watch, Environmental Advocates of New York, People of Albany United for Safe Energy and Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter.

WXXI (NPR, Rochester), April 24, 2018

Audio

Our series of interviews with the gubernatorial candidates continues with Howie Hawkins. He's running for governor on the Green Party line once again. Hawkins has said that Democrats and Republicans have become far too alike, and have failed the people of New York.

He discusses his vision for a single payer health care system, a higher minimum wage, and more.