Howie Hawkins 2010

P.O. Box 562

Syracuse NY 13205

www.howiehawkins.org

Media Release:

May 4, 2010

For More Information:

Howie Hawkins, 315 425-1019

Mark Dunlea, 518 860-3725

Howie Hawkins announced today that he is running for Governor of New York State. He will seek the Green Party nomination at its statewide convention in Albany on May 15th.

"The people of New York need someone in Albany who will stand up for Main Street and Martin Luther King Blvd., rather than someone bought and controlled by Wall Street. Instead of bailing out bankers and military contractors, we need elected officials who will invest in green job creation, a renewed New Deal public works program to give a living wage job to the million New Yorkers who need one," said Hawkins, a member of the Teamsters 317 union that unloads trailers at UPS. Hawkins noted that the recession has disproportionately hurt the poor and communities of color, with their unemployment rates now exceeding that of the Great Depression.

Hawkins said that the Democrats at both the state and national level have betrayed average Americans who voted for them because they wanted change. 

"Four years ago Eliot Spitzer, using the same Rose Garden strategy as Andy Cuomo, promised everything would change on day one. The biggest change has been in the number of state lawmakers who have been forced to resign, been indicted or sent to jail for their misdeeds. Our state lawmakers have become the laughingstock of America, far more interested in rewarding themselves and their campaign contributors than in meeting the needs of average New Yorkers. At the federal level, Democrats repeatedly told Americans that a vote for them was a vote for peace. After winning control of the White House and Congress, the Democrats continue the  war in Iraq, Afghanistan and across the globe. The President proposes the biggest military budget ever while our state and local governments, children, housing programs and schools starve for funding. New Yorkers who want real change need to vote for the Green Party in 2010," added Hawkins.

Hawkins promised to "tax Wall Street in order to invest in Main Street." He called for progressive tax reforms to close the state budget deficit, raising the funds needed to avoid  cuts to schools, environmental programs, health care, homeless programs and other public services. He said that the state should finally comply with the State Finance Law, increasing by 400% the share of its revenues with local governments. Hawkins said he would stop rebating to Wall Street speculators the $16 billion the state collects annually from the stock transfer tax. He supports higher taxes on the bonuses that bankers and Wall Street financiers have been awarding themselves, recapturing a portion of the financial sector’s record profits that largely resulted from the taxpayer-financed bailout. Hawkins called for a carbon tax to help curtail climate change. He supports the soda tax but would dedicate the funds to anti-obesity and anti-hunger programs, such as increasing funding for child nutrition programs, food stamps / SNAP and farmer markets.

Hawkins has previously been the Green Party nominee for US Senate and State Comptroller. He has run for Congress and local offices in Syracuse. The Green Party is committed to ecology, grassroots democracy, nonviolence, and social and economic justice  The Green Party has 22,939 enrolled voters in NYS. The Greens have elected a number of officials in NYS, including 3 current Mayors. Jason West, the Green Mayor of New Paltz, ignited the same sex marriage movement when he performed same-sex weddings. The Greens initially obtained its ballot line with the gubernatorial campaign of Grandpa Al Lewis, a long time activist working for the repeal of the Rockefeller Drug laws. The Green Party needs 50,000 votes for Governor in order to regain its official ballot line. Hawkins said he would be satisfied with 50 percent plus one.

Hawkins called for call for "public enterprise in key areas of the economy as the most efficient and democratic means of economic renewal and security," including a state single-payer expanded and improved Medicare for All program, public power utilities, and a state bank to target new productive investments into a sustainable green economy based on renewable energy, mass transit, sustainable agriculture, and green industries. The state bank would also  refinance mortgages on affordable terms for the tens of thousands of New York homes facing foreclosure. An advocate of last year's Green Jobs / Green Homes legislation to create jobs by energy retrofitting a million New York homes, he supports the on-bill financing legislation to raise the upfront capitol for the project through utility bills, with the loans paid back through the energy savings.

Hawkins wants to eliminate health insurance companies in order to generate $400 billion annually in savings. 

Hawkins was recently arrested for participating in a protest at an insurance company office. "The biggest problem with the American health care system is the enormous waste and profits of insurance companies, which make more money when they deny health care services to their customers. Instead of enacting universal health care, Congress gave a massive tax subsidy to insurance companies, increasing their stranglehold on the American health care system," Hawkins noted.

Hawkins wants to ban hydrofracking for natural gas and shut down New York's aging nuclear power plants as fast as replacement power in renewables comes on line. He supports increased investment in recycling programs, including the construction of local Material Recycling Facilities, and would require packaging to be made of returnable, reusable or recycled material. He believes that state should do more to expand the local food economy, helping local farmers while increasing access to a nutritious diet for all New Yorkers. He called for the state to do more to promote organic foods and reduce the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

Hawkins has been an organizer in movements for peace, justice, labor, the environment, and independent politics since the late 1960s. A former Marine, he helped organize opposition to the Vietnam War and was a leader in the anti-apartheid movement to end US corporate investment in the system of racist labor exploitation in South Africa. He was a co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976 and the Green Party in the US in 1984.

Hawkins moved to Syracuse in 1991 to develop cooperatives for CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives working for an economy that is cooperatively owned, democratically controlled, and ecologically sustainable. As a board member of the Southside Community Coalition, he is currently helping to develop a community- and worker-owned food cooperative in his inner city neighborhood where no grocery stores remain. 

Hawkins is active in Teamsters for a Democratic Union,  US Labor Against the War, and the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare.

Hawkin's articles on politics, economics, and environmental issues have appeared in Against the Current, Green Politics, International Socialist Review, New Politics, Peace and Democracy News, Resist, Roll Call, Society and Nature, Z Magazine, and other publications. He is the editor of the 2006 book, Independent Politics: The Green Party Strategy Debate.