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Capitol Confidential: A.M. Roundup
Albany Times Union, August 3, 2018
The state Public Service Commission voted to force Charter Communications to find a buyer for Spectrum and wants the company to do it without causing disruption of service. The Green Party’s gubernatorial candidate, Howie Hawkins, wants the state to do something unprecedented: take over Spectrum for its own public broadband utility. (TU)
Hawkins Calls for State Take Over of Spectrum for Public Broadband Utility
With state regulators demanding that Charter sell Spectrum, Howie Hawkins, the Green candidate for New York governor, is calling for New York State itself to take over Spectrum for its own public broadband utility.
Hawkins discussed how a public broadband utility will lower costs, improve service, and protect net neutrality and privacy protections that federal regulators recently eliminated.
He also planned to discuss how cities like Syracuse, whose franchise with Spectrum expired 11 years ago in 2007, now have a good case in light of the Public Service Commission’s recent action against Spectrum for just cause to take over the Spectrum franchise municipally without waiting for a state takeover.
Untangling the Left's Nixon Debates
Socialist Worker, August 2, 2018
But both Nixon and the WFP have said they won’t run against Cuomo in November if he wins the primary vote to be the Democratic candidate. So where will the WFP, the DSA and other left forces be left on September 14 if Nixon loses?
The question is especially important since there will be an independent, socialist challenge against Cuomo in November — from Green Party veteran Howie Hawkins, who won 4.9 percent of the vote against Cuomo four years ago, and whose running mate this time is Jia Lee, a teacher activist and member of DSA herself.
Read moreGreen Party’s Hawkins calls for state to take over Spectrum
Albany Times Union, August 2, 2018
New York’s state government should get into the broadband game, according to the Green Party’s candidate for governor.
In the wake of demands from state regulators that Charter sell Spectrum in New York, Howie Hawkins is advocating for New York to take over Spectrum for its own public broadband utility.
Charter, with 2.6 million customers in the state, has 60 days to come up with a plan for the divestiture, which the Public Service Commission says is the only way to resolve a seven-month war of words, name-calling and regulatory ultimatum between the state and Charter over allegations that the company had violated the conditions of its 2016 acquisition of Time Warner Cable.
“New York State should take over Spectrum to jump start a public broadband system that provides high-quality service to all New Yorkers,” Hawkins said in a statement. “Customers are unhappy with escalating costs and deteriorating customer service. A democratically-structured public broadband system would operate at cost for public benefit, not for the profit of distant shareholders. It would provide better service at lower cost and rapidly expand service the underserved rural and inner city communities.”
Read moreTurn Spectrum into Public Broadband Utility
For immediate release: August 2, 2018
Hawkins: NYS Should Take Over Spectrum for Public Broadband Utility
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Syracuse – With state regulators demanding that Charter sell Spectrum, Howie Hawkins, the Green candidate for New York governor, said today that New York State itself should take over Spectrum for its own public broadband utility.
A study by Harvard University researchers published earlier this year found that community broadband networks charge substantially lower rates than their private-sector counterparts. More than 750 communities nationwide already provide public broadband. New York would be the first state to provide public broadband.
New York State regulators want Charter to sell Spectrum because it failed to build out high-speed access to underserved communities and increase broadband speed, which were the regulators’ conditions for approving Charter’s merger with Time Warner Cable in 2016. Charter was expected to expand service to 145,000 homes in underserved rural or inner city communities within a four-year period as well as make its broadband services faster statewide by the end of 2018. The NYS Public Service Commission said last week that Charter had failed on both accounts and ordered Charter to sell Spectrum.
Standing outside Spectrum’s news and customer service offices in the converted New York Central Station building on East Erie Boulevard, Hawkins said, “New York State should take over Spectrum to jump start a public broadband system that provides high-quality service to all New Yorkers. Customers are unhappy with escalating costs and deteriorating customer service. A democratically-structured public broadband system would operate at cost for public benefit, not for the profit of distant shareholders. It would provide better service at lower cost and rapidly expand service the underserved rural and inner city communities.”
Read moreCharter/Spectrum Becomes Issue in Governor's Race
Politico New York Energy, August 2, 2018
CHARTER BECOMES ISSUE IN GOVERNOR’S RACE: Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said earlier this week that a labor dispute in New York City was “politicizing” the Public Service Commission’s enforcement actions against the company. Now, candidates in the state’s governor’s race are making it more clearly a political issue. Republican gubernatorial candidate Marc Molinaro on Wednesday called for the state’s inspector general to conduct an investigation of whether Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration was involved in the PSC’s decision to try to kick the company out of the state. (Cuomo effectively controls the statutorily independent body.) Cuomo’s Democratic challenger Cynthia Nixon touched on the issue after Cuomo accused NY1’s Zack Fink, whose station is owned by Charter, of “defrauding” the public. She said Cuomo should apologize to Fink. Molinaro also linked the “feud” with Fink to the enforcement action, although the PSC has been cracking down on Charter since well before Cuomo made comments to Fink about the issue. And today, Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins will be in Syracuse to suggest a public takeover of Charter/Spectrum to create a public broadband company. — Marie J. French
Pressure mounts on Assembly to tackle stalled anti-corruption measures
Critics, like the Green Party’s Hawkins, believe Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Cuomo ally, blocked the measures from passage this past session at the governor’s behest – despite the Assembly’s past support.
Read moreGreen Party, Eyeing the 2020 Presidential Race, Prepares for the Midterms
New York Times, August 1, 2018
The Democratic Party loomed large over the annual Green Party conference last month, but all eyes were on November, when Green leaders say they’ll field at least 224 candidates.
By Liam Stack
SALT LAKE CITY — The progressive activists who gathered in Utah two weeks ago to strategize for the midterm elections could each recall a moment when they realized the Democratic Party was their foe and decided to quit it.
For Kenneth Mejia, 27, who ran for Congress as a Democratic write-in candidate two years ago, it happened when the party declined to include policies that inspire him — like single payer health care and a ban on fracking — in its 2016 party platform.
For Diane Moxley, 49, who canvassed for Barack Obama in 2008, it waswhen the Occupy Wall Street movement introduced her to others who shared her unease with the party’s acceptance of corporate donor money.
And for Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, 30, who wept when Al Gore lost the 2000 election, the moment came when Bernie Sanders endorsed Hillary Clinton for president at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. It is an event he calls “the Wells Fargo Center incident,” named for the convention’s location.