For immediate release: May 1, 2018

SYRACUSE, 05/01/2018—Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that he would make New York the national leader in advancing worker and immigrant rights.

Hawkins, who participated in May Day events in Syracuse, is a retired member of the Teamsters. He has long advocated making New York a Sanctuary State for immigrants and undocumented residents by enacting the Liberty Act. He campaigned for a $15 minimum wage, with indexing, in his 2014 Gubernatorial campaign, along with the Farmworker Bill of Rights. He has long advocated for stronger union organizing rights (including card check union recognition and a Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act to require a just cause for termination from employment).

Hawkins' platform (http://www.howiehawkins.org/issues) outlines numerous proposals on worker and immigrants rights, including the NY Dream Act; Drivers Licenses for Undocumented Immigrants; and expansion of the Liberty Defense Project by increasing funding for legal services to immigrants to $20 million. He opposes cooperation by New York officials with the anti-immigration efforts of the Trump administration.

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.

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.

For immediate release: April 24, 2018

Howie Hawkins called Governor Cuomo’s plastic bag ban proposal yesterday a publicity stunt designed to divert attention from thousands of climate change activists at the Capitol on Monday saying it was time for Cuomo to Walk the Talk.

Hawkins was one of 55 climate activists arrested out of the Governor’s office. Hawkins supports legislation to require NYS to go to 100% clean energy (not just electricity) by 2030; a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure (including revoking the CPV permit in Orange County); and a robust carbon tax.

Hawkins supports a statewide plastic bag ban similar to California coupled with a fee on paper bags, as Sen. Liz Krueger has already introduced. Without such a fee, consumers just change to paper bags which have their own environmental problems. Cuomo also proposes to exempt restaurants from the ban.

“Cuomo’s wastes too much time greenwashing. The real problem is that he blocked the NYC plastic bag law that the Brooklyn Green Party helped passed. And while he likes to proclaim himself as a national leader on climate change, he is flooding the state with imported fracked gas, giving billions of dollars to old nukes, and is getting only 3 to 4% of the state’s electricity from renewables,” noted Hawkins.

For immediate release: April 18, 2018

Howie Hawkins Is Running for Governor to “Demand More”
Wants NY to Commit to 100% Clean Energy by 2030, Halt Fossil Fuels, Jobs
Urges Increase in State Revenue Sharing to Lower Property Tax

Howie Hawkins of Syracuse visited Binghamton and Ithaca today to announce that he is running for Governor to demand more progressive reforms and system change. Hawkins finished 3rd in the 2014 Gubernatorial race. His 184,419 votes moved the Green Party up to the 4th line among ballot qualified parties.

In his local stops, Hawkins emphasized the need for the state to better share revenues with local government, enabling them to better meet local needs while reducing regressive local property taxes.

Hawkins also said for Earth Day that New York should commit to 100% clean energy by 2030, stop all new fossil fuel infrastructure and enact a carbon tax. Studies show that moving to 100% clean energy would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the state. Nationwide there are already 5 times as many jobs in energy efficiency and renewable energy than in energy efficiency. He wants New York to require all new cars to be fossil free by 2025, and to promote renewable heating and cooling of buildings with air-source and ground-source heat pumps.. Hawkins said he will be participating in the large climate change protests at the State Capitol on Monday April 23.

For immediate release: April 18, 2018

Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor of New York, will speak in Binghamton about his campaign on April 18 at 11am. The address will take place at Columbus Park, across the street development sites that are driving up rents the area and putting pressure on members of the community.

Hawkins will speak on the need for the state to better share revenues with local government, enabling them to better meet local needs while reducing regressive local property taxes.

He will also address the upcoming Earth Day holiday, and New York's need for 100% clean energy by 2030, stopping all new fossil fuel infrastructure, and enacting a carbon tax.
 
Hawkins was the Green Party candidate for Governor in 2010 and 2014. In 2014, he finished third with 184,419 votes, which moved the Green Party up to the 4th line among ballot qualified parties.
 
Hawkins is a retired Teamster who lives in Syracuse NY.
 
The Green Party will hold its nominating convention for statewide candidates in Albany on Saturday May 19. The Green Party is committed to ecology, grassroots democracy, nonviolence, and social and economic justice.

For immediate release: April 13, 2018

Howie Hawkins, who is seeking the Green Party nomination for Governor of New York, will speak in Buffalo about his campaign today at 4pm. The address will take place in the historic Niagara Square (1 Niagara Square).

Hawkins will speak on the need to fully fund and desegregate public schools, while ending high-stakes testing, to provide a quality education for all students in New York. Hawkins will also speak on the need to end wasteful, corrupt "corporate welfare" and instead devote investment toward an aggressive "Green New Deal" of public works, such as improving mass transit and achieving 100% clean and renewable energy in 15 years.

Hawkins was the Green Party candidate for Governor in 2010 and 2014. In 2014, he finished third with 184,419 votes, which moved the Green Party up to the 4th line among ballot qualified parties.

Hawkins is a retired Teamster who lives in Syracuse NY.

The Green Party will hold its nominating convention for statewide candidates in Albany on Saturday May 19. The Green Party is committed to ecology, grassroots democracy, nonviolence, and social and economic justice.

For immediate release: April 13, 2018

For immediate release: April 12, 2018

Howie Hawkins of Syracuse announced today that he is running for Governor to demand more progressive reforms and system change. Hawkins finished 3^rd in the 2014 Gubernatorial race. His 184,419 votes moved the Green Party up to the 4^th line among ballot qualified parties.

"Progressives need to raise our expectations and demand more," Hawkins said. Topping his list of winnable reforms are single-payer health care, fully-funded public schools, a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure, and 100% clean renewable energy within 15 years.

Hawkins will campaign as an eco-socialist. "We are demanding more than piecemeal reforms. We are demanding system change. Capitalism's blind, ceaseless growth is devouring the environment. As long as workers are bound to a fixed wage and capitalists take the remaining value that labor creates as profit, the rich get richer and the rest of us struggle to make ends meet. We need more social ownership and democratic planning to provide a decent standard of living for all that is ecologically sustainable," Hawkins said.