GLENS FALLS — Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins said Thursday that he did not hear a lot about the needs of upstate residents during Wednesday’s Democratic debate between Gov. Andrew Cuomo and primary challenger Cynthia Nixon.
Hawkins said the two candidates seemed to spend a lot of time sniping at each other and avoiding the economic issues that people are talking to him about. They face rising property taxes and rising costs for their health care and food, he said.
“I can’t pay my bills. Wages have been stagnant,” he said, talking to reporters during a campaign stop outside Crandall Public Library.
Hawkins, who also ran for governor in 2010 and 2014, is pitching a “Green New Deal,” to switch the state to 100 percent energy from renewable sources by 2030. He said that is a more aggressive timetable than Cuomo and other candidates have put forward.
“That creates hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs in manufacturing and construction,” he said.
Hawkins also supports single-payer health care, funded through a payroll tax on employers and employees. He believes the state could run the program more efficiently than private insurers.
Hawkins proposes to have the state fully fund Medicaid to lessen the burden on the counties and restore to 8 percent the amount of revenue it shares with municipal governments.
“We’re balancing the state budget on the backs of local property taxpayers,” he said.
Green Party candidate for governor Howie Hawkins says the lack of attention on upstate New York was a mistake for both candidates.
“It didn’t deal with infrastructure falling apart, and the property taxes going up and up, which is also a problem on Long Island,” Hawkins said.
In the 2014 Democratic primary for governor, New York City had the majority of voters by just a few percentage points.
51.8 percent of the vote came from New York City. 48.2 percent of the vote came from outside of the city.
“If candidates neglect upstate they will find themselves in trouble,” Hawkins said.
As an underdog in the race, Hawkins says he hopes to benefit from what he says was missing from the Democrats Wednesday night.
“I think it could be more open than people now think,” Hawkins said.
Hawkins says he feels one debate is not enough, that there should be a series of debates across the state so that New Yorkers can hear the candidates positions' on the issues that matter in their regions.
Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, who is also from Syracuse, said the debate proved he is the only real choice for progressive voters. Like Miner and Hawkins, he criticized both candidates for engaging in personal sniping rather than discussing substantive issues.
"We need a Governor who will work to raise wages for the average worker across the state," Hawkins said. "Wages have been stagnant while costs like housing and health care continue to rise. We need a pay raise."
Howie Hawkins said he looks forward to debates in the general election that focus on solutions to the issues of concern to all New Yorkers rather than the personal sniping that took place in the primary debate between Cuomo and Nixon.
Hawkins said that he would be the Governor of all New York State. He noted that the Democratic Party primary debate acted like the Canadian border started just north of the city.
“We need a Governor who will work to raise wages for the average worker across the state. Wages have been stagnant while costs like housing and health care continue to rise. We need a pay raise,” Hawkins stated.
Howie Hawkins, of Syracuse, has raised $226,000 so far this year for his Green Party challenge to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
Syracuse.com pulled the name of each donor into the searchable database below. Just hit 'search' to see all donors or use a filter to narrow down a specific donor or city.
The NYS Board of Elections limits Green Party candidates for governor to accepting individual donations up to $44,000 for the general election and $7,000 for the primary over a four-year cycle.
Syracuse.com will update donor lists as new data becomes available for download. The list is current through the July 16 deadline.
Donations to Cuomo and other challengers can be found in separate stories:
Roughly 20 students gathered in Lecture Hall 8 Wednesday night to watch incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo face off with Cynthia Nixon in the only New York Democratic gubernatorial debate of 2018.
Afterward, attendees also viewed a livestreamed response from Howie Hawkins, Green Party candidate for governor.
The debate touched on issues like corruption in Albany, the state of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the legalization of marijuana and health care in the state. The debate-viewing event, organized by Students Organized Against Reynolds (SOAR), College Progressives and Democracy Matters, was intended to encourage political engagement from students on campus.
In May 2018, SOAR and other local activist groups wrote and sent a letter to all gubernatorial candidates about their stances against the use of the sweatshop practices that take place at Reynolds Corp. factories. In the letter they criticized Cuomo, stating that he has endorsed sweatshop practices within the state.
The letter also criticized Binghamton University President Harvey Stenger, claiming that he has consistently supported sweatshop labor practices by allowing the University to use Reynolds products.
The demands in the letter included asking the next New York governor to support BU students’ boycott against Reynolds Corp.
While the candidates did not directly address the letter, Hawkins discussed some of the letter’s demands, including his opposition to legalizing 24-hour shifts and his support of providing split shifts for workers.
Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins said in a statement, “While I strongly advocate for a much stronger rent control program, with control by local communities, we also need a major expansion of quality, affordable public housing. they treated the mass transit crisis as a debating point, not a crisis needing a near-term solution."
Hawkins to Respond to Democratic Primary Debate with Wednesday, Aug. 29 Livestream, Thursday press conference in Albany at Capitol at 11 AM
Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, will hold a livestream broadcast following the August 29th Gubernatorial primary debate to respond to the issues raised.
Hawkins will also hold a media availability outside the LCA press rooms on the 3rd Floor of the State Capitol on Thursday Aug. 30th at 11:00 AM.
He will hold a news conference in Glens Fall outside the Crandall Public Library at 3 PM, followed by a Meet and Greet at 6 pm to 9 pm at the Burlap and Beams Wedding Barn at 242 Cameron Rdin Athol.
Hawkins, a co-founder of the national Green Party, is a retired teamster from Syracuse who has been an organizer in movements for peace, justice, labor, the environment, and independentworking-class politics since the late 1960s. He finished 3rd in both the 2010 and 2014 gubernatorial elections.
The debate will also be broadcast on News Radio 810 & 103.1 WGY, or available through an online stream on WGY's website and the iHeartRadio app. Hofstra will be making the debate available on Facebook too.
Following the debate, Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins will provide a rebuttal on his Facebook page starting at 8:15 p.m.
Hawkins and Dunlea Support Efforts to Halt Cuomo’s Anti-Solar Rule Change
The Green Party candidates for Governor and Comptroller today called upon Governor Cuomo and the Public Service Commission (PSC) to halt Cuomo’s anti-solar rules adopted a year ago.
Community groups and solar developers are holding news conferences across the state today to urge Cuomo to restore net metering for community solar projects. A year ago, the PSC replaced net metering with a complex system called Value of Distributed Energy Resources (VDER). The NY Energy Democracy Alliance says that since the change, more than $800 million worth of investment in community solar has been threatened or canceled.
Mark Dunlea, the Green candidate for State Comptroller, said that state should also follow the lead of California which recently required all new building by 2020 to include solar power in their design.
“Cuomo keeps on putting out news releases claiming he has increased solar in the state by 1000% even though only 1% of the state’s electricity is coming from solar. The VDER rule adopted by the PSC last year brought the community solar farm efforts to a standstill. We need a Governor who will stop doing the bidding of the corporate-owned utilities and instead speed up the transition to solar, wind, and geothermal in New York,” said Hawkins, the Green Party nominee for Governor.
The Greens support the NY Off Fossil Fuels (NY OFF) bill (A5105A/S5908A) that commits the state to 100% clean energy by 2030, with one of its benchmarks requiring net zero carbon emissions for all new construction by 2020.
