For immediate release: September 17, 2018

Howie Hawkins Says Green Party is the Progressive Choice in November
Calls for 4 Regional Debates

(New York) Howie Hawkins kicked off his general election campaign by appealing to progressives who voted for Cynthia Nixon, Jumaane Williams, and Zephyr Teachout in the recent primary to support the Green gubernatorial ticket of Hawkins and Jia Lee, as well as Michael Sussman for Attorney General and Mark Dunlea for Comptroller.

Hawkins, who is campaigning as an eco-socialist, said “it is too bad the Greens were left out of the mainstream media narrative leading up to last week’s primaries. We would have advanced the discussion well beyond what we heard from the progressives in the primaries.”

Earlier in the day, Hawkins participated in a news conference observing the 7th anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy movement challenged social and economic inequality and the lack of democracy. “The 1% still rule our state and country. Our campaign is an attempt to finish what Occupy started with policies that will promote a fairer, more equitable distribution of income and wealth,” he said.

For immediate release: September 13, 2018

Howie Hawkins Says He is the Progressive Candidate for Governor
Calls for 4 Regional Debates

I congratulate Andrew Cuomo on his primary victory and Cynthia Nixon for raising progressive alternatives.

Now that the primary is over, I look forward to a robust debate with Cuomo, Molinaro, Sharpe, Miner, and Nixon, if she chooses to stay in the race.

In particular, I will go beyond Nixon in the general election debate to put forward the eco-socialist policies we need for real solutions to the serious problems we face.

We need 100% clean energy by 2030, not 2050, to address the climate emergency.

Universal rent control is pointless without repeal of the Urstadt Law so that cities, not the state legislature, set their own rent regulations. And rent control is not enough. We need to radically expand public housing in order to make affordable housing a reality for all.

To provide every child a good education, we must not only fully fund high-poverty school districts. We must also desegregate New York’s most segregated schools in the nation and Opt Out of high-stakes testing that are used to evaluate teachers and use to put high-poverty schools into receivership and privatization as charter schools.

After the primary debate which largely ignored upstate New York and many critical issues starting with climate change, I proposed four regional debates (NYC Metro area, Capital District, Central NY and Western NY) to each focus on a topic area: The Economy, Government Reform, The Environment and Climate, and Social Policy, including education, health care, housing, transit, criminal justice, and civil rights.

Unlike the primary debate, the rules should be determined by all of the candidates and the media, not just Mr. Cuomo.

For immediate release: September 10, 2018

For immediate release: September 8, 2018

Notice of Media Availability 

Date:  Saturday, September 8
Who: Howie Hawkins for Governor, Mark Dunlea for Comptroller

Location: Troy Farmers Market
Time: 9:30  AM

Location: Rise for Climate rally, Governor’s Mansion, Eagle St
Time 11:00 AM

Location: Albany Jazz Festival, Corning Preserve
Time: 1 PM to 3 PM

For immediate release: September 6, 2018

Calls for Increased State Action on Child Lead Contamination, Oil Bomb Trains

(Buffalo, NY) Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, called today for increased state funding for public schools in Buffalo, a school desegregation program, and an end to the use of standardized testing to evaluate schools and teachers and impose state takeover of schools using receivership.

Hawkins, whose Lt. Governor running mate Jia Lia is a public school teacher in New York City, also called forincreased state action to reduce student exposure to lead contamination.

“We need a Governor who will ensure a quality education for every child regardless of where they live or the economic status of their parents. Cuomo has failed to comply with court orders to raise funding for high-poverty inner-city and rural schools. The most powerful way to improve education for all students is to desegregate our schools, which in New York are the most segregated in the country,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins said charter schools have increased segregation. “Cuomo has increased segregation by using standardized tests to justify the expansion of private charter schools that are even more segregated than our public schools. That rewards his hedge fund donors who profit off the charter industry, but it hurts the education of children,” Hawkins said.

For immediate release: August 30, 2018

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.

For immediate release: August 28, 2018

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.

For immediate release: August 27, 2018

For immediate release: August 24, 2018

Hawkins Supports Strong Local Rent Control, Expanded Public Housing, Tenants’ Rights

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, outlined his plan today to resolve the housing crisis in New York City and across the state, including returning control of rent laws to the city and massively increasing investment in public housing.

“Homelessness has increased 36% since Cuomo came into office and the city lost 75,000 units of rent stabilized housing. As HUD Secretary, Cuomo demolished more public housing units than he built with subsidies to private developers for affordable units. He’s governor for his real estate donors, not millions of New York tenants,” Hawkins said.

“Under the de Blasio administration, rent hikes, combined with developer-friendly rezoning and harassment by landlords, are driving the working class out of Manhattan and much of Brooklyn and other parts of NYC,” said Hawkins.

“Since skyrocketing rents and displacement of working class tenants is what we get from self-styled progressive Democrats like Cuomo and de Blasio, it’s time for an alternative – and it’s not the Republicans,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins noted that unaffordable housing is a statewide problem. Over 50% of New York renters pay more than the federal affordability standard of 30% of household income. More than 25% pay more than 50% of their income in rent. Buffalo has the third highest rate of rent inflation in the nation. As bad as NYC is, it doesn’t make the top 25 U.S. cities for rent inflation.

For immediate release: August 20, 2018

Hawkins Calls for Carbon Tax, Increase Mass Transit Fund to Reduce Climate Impact of Transportation

DEC holding “listening sessions” in Syracuse on Tuesday

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that the state should enact a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions in order to accelerate the transition to clean energy. The revenues from a carbon tax should be used to help finance an increase in mass transit funding. (See Hawkins release on Fixing the Subways.)

Hawkins also said that as Governor he would push for a requirement that all new vehicles in the state be zero emission by 2025. He supports increasing the number of electric charging stations in NY and a higher tax credit for electric cars. He would also enact congestion pricing in NYC.

“While the Cuomo administration has moved at a glacial pace in moving our electric production from fossil fuels to wind, solar and efficiency, he has been even slower with transportation, which has an even bigger carbon footprint. We need action now to avoid climate chaos, while Cuomo prefers studies and more talk,” noted Hawkins.