Articles

Thank you – and where we go from here.

Dear 4th District Voters and Campaign Volunteers and Donors,

I am writing to thank those who supported my campaign and to invite you to join in our next steps fighting for progressive taxes, living-wage jobs, fully-funded schools, clean affordable energy, and public transit.

With all the ballots now counted, I received 48.1% of the vote, losing by just 96 votes: 1214 to 1118.

We may have lost the election to the office. But the 4th District sent a strong message of support for our policy platform, including:

• Progressive Tax Reforms to make the rich to pay their fair share of taxes again so that our schools and city services are fully funded,
• A Community Hiring Hall as part of a reformed Living Wage Ordinance to ensure a fair share of city-funded jobs for minorities and city residents,
• A city-owned Municipal Development Bank focused on developing community-owned worker and consumer cooperatives in the city,
• A Public Power utility for affordable clean energy, and
• Transportation Justice for better bus service and safe walking and wheeling on our streets.

Our message also resonated with voters outside the 4th District. The Dec. 27 Post-Standard reported that I received write-in votes for every other district and at-large Common Council seat, as well as votes for 5th District Justice of the Supreme Court, County Executive, District Attorney, County Comptroller, County Legislator, and City Auditor. I received the most write-ins for Supreme Court Justice, District Attorney, and County Comptroller. Since the latter two were unopposed on the ballot, that means I also came in second in those races. The 30 write-ins I received for County Executive, who was also unopposed, placed me third, behind former candidate Dale Sweetland with 40 and ahead of former incumbent Nick Pirro with 25. All these unsolicited write-in votes make it clear that voters across the city and county want to vote for the Green platform and candidates.

I promised the voters during the campaign that after the election, win or lose, I would continue to work for these policies. In this letter I want to discuss the next steps we can take together to advance the Green policy agenda.

But first, thank you's are in order.

THANK YOU

Thank you to the voters who went to the polls for me. We faced enormous institutionalized barriers: 67% Democratic enrollment in the 4th District; placement at the bottom of the ballot; a large block of voters who always vote a straight Democratic ticket ("I would vote for a dog on the Democratic ticket," as one such voter told us); paid poll inspectors (only Democrats and Republicans can be poll inspectors under state Election Law); City Hall closed for the day to put campaign workers out for the Democratic machine; and being targeted by Democratic organizations from outside the 4th District who brought in campaign workers from the suburbs and as far away as Rochester and Brooklyn to defeat us.

Nearly overcoming these handicaps demonstrated strong support for our policy proposals. Your vote was not wasted. It sent a clear message. Whether or not the Democrats, who now hold every elected office in the city, heard that message, we will continue to press forward with fundamental reforms for economic justice and environmental sustainability.

Thank you to the volunteers who worked for the campaign. Over 100 of you helped by knocking on doors, making phone calls, packaging mailings, and doing all the other tasks that make a grassroots people-to-people campaign possible.

Thank you to the leadership team that managed the campaign: Barbara Humphrey, Zac Moore, and Ursula Rozum. They worked their hearts out coordinating the volunteers, keeping the lists for the doorstep and phone canvass available and up-to-date, organizing campaign events, and doing the million and one things that keep coming up in a campaign.

Thank you to Renee Perry, our campaign treasurer, who kept our books accurate, signed the checks, and filed the campaign finance disclosure reports.

I've never had such a strong group of campaign managers and volunteers in any election campaign. You are why we almost won this time.

Thank you to the more than 100 individuals who contributed money to the campaign. Judging from the campaign finance disclosure reports, we had more individual contributors than any other council candidate and more than all the Democratic and Republican council candidates combined if we exclude the one other candidate who had a good number of individual contributors. Your contributions enabled us to produce all the literature, yard signs, and mailings we had planned. We ran a competitive campaign funded by a large number of grassroots people. You showed that the Green Party policy of refusing contributions from corporate special interests is viable. We maintained our political independence from the "corporate persons" – the legal fictions that enable the developers, contractors, law firms, and other for-profit interests, who financed our opponent and typically fund Democratic and Republican candidates, to own the best government that money can buy.

MOVING FORWARD

My campaign was about advancing our policy agenda and building a movement with the power to make it happen. It was not about just electing one person to the council who could be out-voted on our reform proposals by the major party politicians. We know that real change comes when many people stand up, raise their voices, and take independent action that cannot be taken for granted by elected officials.

Now we want to continue organizing around our policy demands. We will begin on Sunday afternoon, 2 to 5 pm, February 12, at ArtRage Gallery at 505 Hawley Ave. in Syracuse. Called "Closing the Gap Between the Rich and the Rest of Us: A Green New Deal," we will discuss Progressive Tax Reform, Medicare for All, and Running for Office. See the enclosed flyer for more information.

After hearing a new round of austerity budgets projected for the coming years by President Obama in his State of the Union address, Governor Cuomo in his State of the State address, and Mayor Miner in her State of the City address, it is clearer than ever that we need to fight for progressive taxation and spending priorities at the local, state, and federal levels in order to fund our schools, mass transit, clean energy, and job creation.

I urge you stay involved. Without a strong fight back, the establishment will continue to bail out the 1% and their big banks and corporations by making the working and middle classes pay for it with what the business press calls the "new normal" – long-term high unemployment, wage and benefit cuts, higher taxes for working and middle class people, cuts to schools and public services, and more global warming, hydrofracking, and other environmental nightmares.

WHY WE NEED INDEPENDENT POLITICS

You don't have to be a Green Party member to work with us on these issues. We will be working on many of these issues in single-issue coalitions. We want to work with those who support these policies, whether they are a Green, a member of another political party, or a member of no political party.

But let me make the case for why we need a Green Party and why you need to be in it.

Public opinion polls show strong progressive majorities support single-payer Medicare-for-All, progressive taxation, increasing the minimum wage, no cuts to Social Security or Medicare, cuts in military spending, ending the wars and bringing the troops home, public jobs for the unemployed, stronger environmental regulations, clean renewable energy, abortion rights, gay rights, immigrant rights, and civil liberties.

But this progressive majority is not translating into progressive policy. Why?

The answer is that the Democratic leadership – the politicians and their corporate funders, not the progressive rank-and-file Democratic voter – takes progressive voters for granted because they believe these voters have no where else to take their votes. Every progressive movement and constituency – labor, environmentalists, the peace movement, blacks and latinos, and now the Occupy movement – are taken for granted by the Democrats.

That is why we need an independent progressive party like the Green Party. And that is why you need to be in it – so we won't be taken for granted.

To vote for the Democrats as the lesser evil because the Republicans are worse is to surrender to the status quo. That is how the two-party system bankrolled by the 1% works: the Republicans are there to scare the progressive majority into voting for the status quo Democrats. The Democrats manage the government in the interests of their big business funders much like the Republicans do.

The way out of this box is to elect Greens who will translate progressive public values into progressive public policies. In the city of Syracuse, an overwhelming majority of people have progressive values. The Republicans are so weak and shrinking so fast, that it is the Green Party that is now positioned as the alternative. The future of Syracuse politics will be the progressive Greens vs. the Democratic status quo. The Greens can win elections now in Syracuse.

JOIN THE GREEN PARTY

You can join the Green Party at a range of commitments.

Enrolled Membership

The first thing to do to join the Green Party is to enroll in it with the Board of Elections. Your enrollment makes you eligible to vote in Green Party primaries. It also helps increase the number of members your county party is entitled to elect to the state committee of the Green Party.

You enroll in the Green Party by submitting a voter registration card to the county Board of Elections with Green Party checked off.

If you are registering to vote for the first time, or if you are registered as not enrolled in any party, the Board of Elections will immediately enroll you as a Green Party member on the official voter registration rolls. If you are now registered in another party, the Board of Elections will enroll you as a Green Party member after the next general election in November. For the purposes of participating in the Green Party outside of primary elections, we will take you as a Green Party member as soon as you enroll.

Supporting Membership

The next level of commitment is to become a financial contributor. The Democrats and Republicans rely on big bucks from big money individuals and corporate interests. The Green Party relies on lots of small contributors from regular people. 99% is bigger than 1%. We can compete with the corporate parties if lots of us step up as contributors.

Your contribution to the Green Party of New York State will make you a Supporting Member of the state and county parties. Half of your contribution will be rebated to your county party. It helps increase the number of members the county party is entitled to elect to the state committee of the Green Party.

Go to the State Party website to make an online contribution. Or you can mail checks to the Green Party of NYS c/o Eric Jones, Treasurer, 365 Potomac Ave, Buffalo NY 14213.

Local Sustainer

Local sustainers make regular monthly contributions. They are the backbone of funding for all the activities of the Green Party of Onondaga County.

There are enough of us who can contribute a modest and affordable amount monthly to make the Green Party as well funded as Mayor Miner's PACs that are filled by her $1000-a-head cocktail parties and $400-a-couple dinners. This level of support by a broad base of community people is necessary for the Greens to compete with the corporate-financed parties and elect Greens to local, state, and federal office in Syracuse and Onondaga County.

Go to the Green Party of Onondaga County website to become a sustainer through online contributions. Or you can mail checks to the Green Party of Onondaga County, P.O. Box 562, Syracuse NY 13205.

GREEN ORGANIZERS AND CANDIDATES

"We are the ones we've been looking for" was a constant refrain in the grassroots civil rights movement of the 1960s. It captured the idea that to make the changes we want we can't wait around for some leader to take us there, that the movement is stronger and more sustainable with many grassroots leaders, and that our leaders are already here among ourselves.

For the Greens, that means it is time for more of us to step up as organizers who build the movement, not just as activists who show up intermittently for activities. Organizers talk to people, listen to them, and build ongoing working relationships in a movement whose demands and energy comes from the grassroots.

"We are the ones we've been looking for" also means it is time for more of us to step up as Green candidates for public office, not just as Green voters on election day. We don't want career politicians. We want Green candidates who are about making the changes we need for economic security and environmental health.

You don't need experience to be a Green organizer or a Green candidate. What you need is commitment. The Green Party will support you as you gain the experience. And take it from someone who has been in election debates with Councilors, Mayors, Congresspeople, and Governors: the Green platform is well received and easy to defend. It is the major party candidates who are in the difficult position of defending indefensible policies and a sorry record.

Between work, school, and family commitments, not everyone at this stage of their life can commit to being an organizer or candidate. But many of us can. It is something that every Green should consider. We have elections every year: local elections in odd years and state and federal elections in even years. We should have Greens contesting all of these elections. It is time to step up.

Yours for a Green Future,
Howie Hawkins

PS – I hope to see you at the February 12 issues and action conference. Don't forget to return the Interest Form so we can move forward together on the issues. And once again, thank you for your support and involvement. We are just getting started.