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Party Nominations for Statewide Elections Come Into Focus
The Green Party has put its statewide slate forward, with Howie Hawkins again topping the ticket as the gubernatorial candidate. Jia Lee will be the Green Party nominee for lieutenant governor.
After laying out a progressive policy agenda and framework for social, economic, and environmental justice, Hawkins said at Saturday’s convention, “The way this is going to play out in the fall is there’ll be the progressive Greens, the centrist Democrats, and the conservative Republicans. And the argument, the narrative against us is we’re going to spoil it and elect the Republicans, and we have to say ‘no, we’re the progressive alternative, the Democrats won’t solve our problems, don’t waste your vote, vote for what you want, make your vote count, make the system come to what you want -- and that’s how we leverage power and we make a difference.”
Mark Dunlea will be the Green candidate for comptroller and Michael Sussman will be the Green candidate for attorney general.
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Read moreAt state convention, Green Party designates Hawkins as candidate for NY governor
CNY Central (CBS, CS, Fox - Syracuse), May 20, 2018
Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins (CNYCentral File Photo)
Howie Hawkins was designated as the Green Party's designated candidate for New York governor on Saturday at their state convention in the Capital Region.
The party also designated New York City school teacher Jia Lee for lieutenant governor. The convention was held at a church in Rennselaer.
Hawkins, a retired UPS worker from Syracuse and Green Party staple, has run for governor twice before — in 2010 and 2014. Four years ago, he finished in third place, receiving 5 percent of the vote, the largest percentage of any third party except the Conservative Party line. Hawkins' strong showing in 2014 moved the Green Party up to the fourth line among ballot-qualified parties.
Hawkins has also unsuccessfully run for other offices in the past, the most recent being Syracuse mayor in 2017.
The Green Party said it plans to campaign on single-payer health care, 100 percent clean energy by 2030, fully-funded public schools, legalization of marijuana and desegregation of schools in the state — something Hawkins has been a leading voice in for years.
"Integration has been by far the most effective education reform for closing achievement gaps and improving the education of children of all backgrounds," Hawkins said. "But testing and charters have become the bipartisan evasion of confronting segregation."
Election Day is Nov. 6.
Working Families Party endorses Nixon in advance of major party conventions
WFBO (NPR, Buffalo), May 20, 2018
New York's Working Families Party has formally endorsed actress Cynthia Nixon as its gubernatorial candidate. The small, progressive party held its annual convention on Saturday in Harlem.
The 52-year-old Emmy award-winning activist accepted the party's support.
The state's Green Party Saturday endorsed Howie Hawkins for governor. Hawkins is a retired teamster who is making his third run for the office.
Read moreHawkins secures Green Party designation for Governor
SYRACUSE, N.Y. (WSYR-TV) - Howie Hawkins received the Green Party designation for Governor.
This will be Hawkins' third consecutive run for the position. He finished with 5% of the vote in 2014.
The Green Party is focusing their campaign this election season on clean energy, single-payer health care, legalization of marijuana, and fully-funded public schools.
“Testing and charters have become the bipartisan evasion to confronting segregation. Integration has been by far the most effective education reform in closing achievement gaps and improving the education of children of all backgrounds,” Hawkins said in a statement from his campaign.
Governor Cuomo is facing a Democratic primary challenge from Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon. Republican Marc Molinaro is also seeking the state's top political seat.
Green Party nominates statewide candidates
The Green Party has endorsed Howie Hawkins in his third bid for governor. Here, Hawkins is pictured during his 2010 campaign. (Robert Kirkham/Buffalo News file photo)
At its state convention in Rennselaer on Saturday, the Green Party nominated Howie Hawkins for governor, Jia Lee for lieutenant governor, Mark Dunlea for comptroller and Michael H. Sussman for attorney general.
Hawkins, a retired Teamster from Syracuse, will be making his third consecutive run for governor. He received 5 percent of the vote in 2014 and is a co-founder of the Green Party in the United States.
Lee is a public school teacher and UFT chapter leader in New York City. She is a leader in the Opt Out movement and active in the Movement of Rank and File Educators.
Sussman is a prominent civil rights and environmental lawyer and is from Goshen. Dunlea is from Poestenkill and is an anti-poverty activist.
The Green ticket will campaign for single-payer health care, 100 percent clean energy by 2030, fully funded public schools, legalization of marijuana and public campaign finance.
Green Party Statewide Nominating Convention in Rensselaer
Rensselaer—The Green Party of New York will hold its nominating convention for statewide candidates on Saturday, May 19, from 11am-6pm at the Rensselaer Presbyterian Church, 34 Broadway, Rensselaer, NY.
Announced candidates seeking nomination include: Howie Hawkins (Governor), Jia Lee (Lt. Governor), Michael H. Sussman (Attorney General), Adrienne Craig-Williams (Comptroller), and Mark Dunlea (Comptroller).
Featured speakers will include former Green Party Lt. Governor candidate Dr. Alice Green, historian and journalist Vijay Prashad, and Green Party official Christine Elms of the South Glens Falls Village Board.
Guest speakers and workshops for rank-and-file Greens are scheduled to begin at 11am. Statewide candidate nominations are scheduled to begin at 2:30pm.
Candidate: The Folly of NY’s Cross-Endorsements
One month ago, notes the New York Green Party’s Howie Hawkins at Gotham Gazette, the Working Families Party endorsed Cynthia Nixon for governor. Three days later, the WFP “said they didn’t really mean it” when political director Bill Lipton suggested the party would take her off its November ballot line if she loses the Democratic primary to Gov. Cuomo so as not to play the “spoiler.” Hawkins says he feels for the WFP’s rank-and-file: “They got double-crossed by Cuomo in 2014 when they endorsed him. This year they got strong-armed by Cuomo when they didn’t.” But that’s the problem with New York’s cross-endorsement “fusion” system: All the minor parties (except the Greens, who always field their own separate slate of candidates) “function like political clubs inside the major parties,” instead of like “independent parties.”
#RedForEd versus the UFT-Cuomo blues
Socialist Worker, May 11, 2018
Now that the WFP has endorsed Cynthia Nixon, she has a potential ballot line to run against Cuomo in November in the likely event that she loses the Democratic primary. But the WFP's Lipton has already declared that that's not going to happen. "We will not be a spoiler," the state director told reporters. "In 20 years, we have never been a spoiler."
In other words, don't count on Lipton to break the abusive cycle in which Cuomo kicks down at the unions, who kick down at the WFP, who then kick down at grassroots activists backing the Green Party campaign of Howie Hawkins and Jia Lee, the latter a New York City teacher and opt-out activist.
How unrealistic to back a third party campaign, the argument will go, at a time when Cuomo and the unions won't even tolerate a primary challenge inside the Democrats.
THERE ARE many teachers like Jia Lee, a member of the Movement of Rank and File Educators caucus inside the UFT, who disagree with the concessionary strategy of their union's leadership. They face the challenge of organizing to bring the spirit of the red-state rebellion into the bluest of cities.
The case for an independent Left party: From the bottom up
Black Agenda Report, May 10, 2018
Original: International Socialist Review, Winter 2017-18
If the 13 million votes received by self-styled “democratic socialist” Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries accomplished nothing else positive, it put the questions of socialism and independent working-class politics up for public discussion. I have been critical of Sanders’s socialism because his policy platform was New Deal liberalism, not socialism. More importantly, by entering the Democratic Party, Sanders broke with the socialist principle of independent working-class political action.1 He became the “sheepdog” herding progressives, who had the option of voting for the Green ticket of Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka in the general election, back into a party run by the billionaire class he professes to oppose.2 Nevertheless, the broad liberal to radical American left is now discussing what socialism is and debating whether the Left should be inside or outside the Democratic Party—or both inside and outside. These are good discussions to have.
As we enter the run-up to the 2018 midterm elections, Trumpism is weakening under its own self-inflicted wounds, the ambivalent legitimacy of Trump’s election by a popular minority due to the eccentricities of the Electoral College, and a spreading realization that behind the economic populism of his campaign rhetoric is the most reactionary Republican economic and social policy agenda since the late nineteenth-century era of Social Darwinism and Jim Crow. A massive resistance against Trump and his administration has emerged, and it is in the main counting on a Democratic restoration to save us. The Democrats may replace the irrationalities and racist revanchism of Trump, but they won’t replace the austerity capitalism and militaristic imperialism to which the Democratic Party is committed. It is a key institution upholding the broad policy consensus of America’s ruling class and its political representatives in the two-party system of corporate rule.
Read moreThe Contradictions of Cross-Endorsements in the Governor’s Race
Independent Political Report, May 10, 2018
That didn’t take long. On Saturday, April 13 the Working Families Party endorsed Democrat Cynthia Nixon for New York Governor. By the following Tuesday, the WFP said they didn’t really mean it.
“We will not be a spoiler,” said Bill Lipton, the WFP’s political director, indicating that the WFP will take Nixon off its ballot line if she loses the Democratic primary against Governor Andrew Cuomo. Perhaps the WFP will offer Cuomo their ballot line for a third time if he wins the Democratic primary – if he will take it.
I feel for rank-and-file WFP progressives. It’s an abusive relationship. They got double-crossed by Cuomo in 2014 when they endorsed him. This year they got strong-armed by Cuomo when they didn’t.
I would like to reassure WFP progressives that, whatever happens in the Democratic primary, the Green Party gubernatorial ticket will offer a progressive alternative in the November 6 general election.
(photo via Facebook: @HowieHawkinsForGovernorPolitician)
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