At its state convention in a Rensselaer church on Saturday, the Green Party designated Howie Hawkins for Governor and Jia Lee for Lieutenant Governor.

For Hawkins, a retired Teamster from Syracuse, it will be his third consecutive run for Governor. Hawkins finished third with 5% of the vote in 2014. Hawkins has been an organizer in progressive movements since the late 1960s and was co-founder of the Green Party in the U.S.

Lee is a public school teacher and parent in New York City. She is a leader in the Opt Out movement against high-stakes testing. A UFT chapter leader, she is active in the Movement of Rank and File Educators, which ran her for UFT president in 2016 where she came in second with nearly 11,000 votes.

The Green ticket will campaign for longstanding Green demands for single-payer health care, 100% clean energy by 2030, fully-funded public schools, legalization of marijuana, and public campaign finance.

For immediate release: May 18, 2018

Michael H. Sussman, an attorney from Orange County, proudly announces that he is seeking the Green Party nomination for New York State Attorney General. Sussman is a 1978 Honors Graduate of Harvard Law School and has been one of the Hudson Valley's most prominent civil rights and trial lawyers since the 1980's when, as lead counsel for the Yonkers Branch of the NAACP, he helped end racial segregation in the City of Yonkers public schools.

Click here to download the complete text of Sussman's release announcing his candidacy.

The Green Party of New York's convention will be held Saturday, May 19 at Rensselaer Presbyterian Church, 34 Broadway in Rensselaer, NY. Programming for rank-and-file Greens, including guest speakers Vijay Prashad and Dr. Alice Green, will begin at 11am. Statewide candidate nominations are scheduled to begin at 2:30pm.

For immediate release: May 15, 2018

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, called on Governor Andrew Cuomo to cancel what the governor announced last Friday as a “security and solidarity” trip to Israel.

“The live ammo shooting of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators by Israeli soldiers, killing scores and wounding hundreds, should be condemned by all. Cuomo should cancel his trip to Israel to demonstrate his rejection of this unjustifiable massacre,” Hawkins said.

For immediate release: May 14, 2018

Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor, will participate in two anti-poverty demonstrations in Albany on Monday, May 14.

The first will begin in Academy Park at 11 am to support the Driver's License Access and Privacy Act (A10273). Enacting the bill would enable undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers licenses in the interests of public safety, the economy, and community integration.

The second demonstration will be the first New York action of the national 40-day Poor People’s Campaign. It will begin at 2 pm in West Capital Park. The first week's theme is "Somebody's Hurting Our People: Child Poverty, Women, and People with Disabilities."

Hawkins will be available for media interviews.

“Access to drivers licenses for undocumented workers and raising the welfare grant above the poverty line are policies that all working people should support because most of us will need public support at some point in our lives,” said Hawkins.

He noted a 2013 survey conducted by the Associated Press that found that “4 out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near-poverty, or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives.”

“This common experience of the immense majority of Americans ought to be the basis for a winning majoritarian working-class politics. We can win the Economic Bill of Rights that the Martin Luther King’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, like today’s campaign, was seeking, including a job guarantee, a guaranteed income above poverty, universal public healthcare, and affordable housing and quality education for all,” said Hawkins.

For immediate release: May 8, 2018

ALBANY--Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins is lobbying state legislators today in support of the New York Off Fossil Fuels Act (NY OFF, A.5105/S.5908A ). The bill would amend the state's energy master plan to require a transition to 100% clean energy by 2030. It would halt the building of any new infrastructure for natural gas or other fossil fuels.

The lobby day in Albany is organized by Food & Water Watch and the Green Education and Legal Fund. Over 100 organizations in the state have endorsed the NY OFF Act.

"I support NY OFF because it's the only climate bill before the legislature that actually does what the climate science says we must do. The science says that industrial states like New York must get to 100% clean energy and zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 if the planet is to avert runaway global warming and climate catastrophe," Hawkins said.

For immediate release: May 7, 2018

SYRACUSE, May 7, 2018 -- Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins has released his income tax returns for 2009 through 2017. As a 2014 gubernatorial candidate, he released his tax forms for 2009 through 2013, which can be found here . His tax forms for 2014 through 2017 can be found here .

As a working Teamster who unloaded trucks overnight at UPS until March of this year, Hawkins earned close to the median household income for his home town of Syracuse ($32,704 in 2016). The median household income for New York was $62,909 in 2016, the latest figure available.

For immediate release: May 7, 2018

Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor, will participate in the 100% clean energy by 2030 / Off Fossil Fuels Now campaign at the State Capitol on Tuesday, May 8.

Hawkins will be available for media interviews.

Hawkins was one of 55 people arrested during the Cuomo Walk the Talk climate action protest on April 23.

Hawkins’ 2010 campaign called on a ban on fracking on natural gas. His Green New Deal calls for 100% clean energy by 2030 (no natural gas, nukes, biomass) combined with a full employment job guarantee program based on a sustainable economy.

For immediate release: May 5, 2018

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, repeated his long standing call for legalization of recreational use of marijuana at the annual cannabis parade in New York.

“We must demand more than our present ineffective medical marijuana program which seems primarily designed to enrich a few well-connected business people. Even though New York decriminalized small amounts of marijuana 40 years ago, local police especially in New York City have used the discriminatory enforcement of the law to target people of color,” noted Hawkins.

Hawkins believes cannabis legalization should include the following measures:

• Regulate cannabis industry to include and encourage minority, women, small, and cooperative businesses and exclude big pharma, liquor, tobacco, and agribusiness.

• Regulate cannabis to encourage organic production methods and protect consumers from pesticides and chemical additives.

• Full Re-Legalization of Industrial Hemp for any hemp grower.

• Tax cannabis products at the normal sales tax rates, excluding homegrown not for trade or sale.

• Pardons for all non-violent drug felons.

• A Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation Commission to assess the impact of the war on drugs and mass incarceration, particularly on communities of color, and recommend policies to repair the damages.

• State Attorney General to defend of all cannabis producers and consumers who may be prosecuted by federal law enforcement.

For immediate release: May 4, 2018

Syracuse - Green gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins stood in front of a demolished public housing site in Syracuse to call for a massive expansion of public housing as a way to make housing affordable in New York State. Hawkins also advocates for an expansion of rent control statewide.

Hawkins also said that existing public subsidies for private housing development invites pay-to-play corruption, enriching wealthy campaign contributors while doing little to make housing affordable for low- and moderate-income New Yorkers.

"Quality, safe public housing puts downward pressure on private rents. It compliments rent regulations in cities that have them. New public housing should be built in the cities and the suburbs as high-quality, mixed-income, humanly-scaled, scatter-site, green-building projects," Hawkins said.

"This new public housing program will be a jobs program, a desegregation program, and a clean energy program as well as an affordable housing program. These high-quality projects will improve the quality of life in every community in which they are built," Hawkins said.

For immediate release: May 3, 2017

Friday, May 4, marks the final court day for the “Albany 55” for their arrests at Cuomo Walk The Talk On Climate Event at the Capitol Building following Earth Day. Visuals and press conference planned outside the courthouse.

Albany, NY -  Court began this Monday for the 55 people arrested at the Hall of Governors inside the Capitol Building on April 23rd in protest of Governor Cuomo’s lack of climate action. Court will take place at Albany City Court at One Morton Ave. in Albany at 9am on Friday, 5/4, marking the final day. All defendants will be available for questions.

To recap, the April 23rd event saw a march of 1500 people from Sheridan Hollow, the site of a fracked gas power plant proposal to generate energy for the Empire State Plaza, to the Capitol Building on as part of the "Cuomo Walk The Talk" day of action. Governor's seat candidates, Democrat Cynthia Nixon and Green Party's Howie Hawkins as well as Karenna Gore, daughter of former Vice President Al Gore, participated in the protest.

Actor and activist James Cromwell was also among the 55 people arrested at the Hall of Governors in a non-violent act of civil disobedience, demanding Cuomo to stop all fracking infrastructure, move to 100% renewable energy, and make polluters pay.