New York

campaign reform, Green Party, New York, State Politics, Third Party April 23, 2016

The Twilight of Liberalism: Decline of the Working Families Party

counterpunch By Peter LaVenia April 22, 2016 The Working Families Party – darling of The Nation-reading liberals in New York State – is in trouble. The NY Daily News reported this week that major unions (SEIU 1199, United Federation of Teachers, and the Hotel Trades Council) had quietly dropped financial support of the organization in late 2014. Those of us who have long fought for an independent, radical left will not mourn what is likely to be the slow decline of the WFP, though if we are lucky it may take the form of a quick implosion. The party’s stated…

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Democracy, Green Party, National Politics, New York, political corruption, Socialism, State Politics, Third Party May 27, 2015

How Bernie Sanders Points the Way for New York’s Outsider Candidates

New York Observer by Will Bredderman May 26, 2015 One afternoon in 1980, a gadfly candidate named Bernie Sanders and his roommate Richard Sugarman, an adjunct professor of religion at the University of Vermont, went to the Burlington city hall to look over the results from Mr. Sanders’ most recent election: his 1976 run for governor. It was a position he had sought before in 1972, in between two successive unsuccessful attempts at the U.S. Senate, each time running on the Liberty Union Party line and its broad socialist-pacifist platform. (“He said we needed fundamental change,” recalled perennial New York…

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Democracy, Environment, Green Party, New York January 20, 2015

Green Party candidate could bolster debate

by Jimmy Buff Poughkeepsie Journal January 17, 2015 Last week, Congressman Chris Gibson announced he wouldn’t be running for re-election in New York’s 19th congressional district in 2016. The Kinderhook republican had always said he would self-impose term limits, but nevertheless, his announcement caught people off guard. Gibson had just resoundingly won re-election in the district in November and with that kind of support many thought he’d continue in the job beyond 2016. Speculation turned quickly toward Gibson’s political future — a run for governor of New York seemed to be the most popular consensus — and who the republicans…

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Climate Change, Environment, Fracking, Labor, New York, Race, Social Justice January 19, 2015

A Green State of State Message on MLK Day

by Howie Hawkins New York Governor Cuomo’s State of the State address comes as we are celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday. Unfortunately, half a century after the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, the dream of equality and prosperity for all remains unrealized. Income inequality in New York is the highest in the nation, with one-sixth of New Yorkers living below the poverty line. In upstate cities, more than half of all children live in poverty. New York has the most segregated housing and schools in the country, worse than Mississippi or Alabama. More than a million New Yorkers…

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campaign reform, New York, political corruption, Public Campaign Finance Reform April 8, 2014

New York voters deserve a Clean Money system

by Howie Hawkins and Steve Breyman Albany Times Union Friday, April 4, 2014 The U.S. Supreme Court decision this week in McCutcheon vs. FEC removed limits on the total amount that rich donors could contribute to all candidates in an electoral cycle. The need for a voluntary system of public campaign financing for candidates to run with no-strings-attached clean money is now greater than ever. With the passage of the budget, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders missed an opportunity to enact just such a system. What New Yorkers got was a watered-down, partial public financing system for the comptroller’s…