Howie Hawkins to Run for US Senate as Green

Green Party Co-Founder Howie Hawkins
Announces for US Senate

Campaign to Focus on Peace, Universal Health Care, Global Warming and Renewable Energy

(Syracuse, NY) Long time Green Party leader Howie Hawkins announced today he is seeking the Green Party nomination for US Senate.

The Green Party nominating convention will be in Albany on May 20.

Hawkins helped found the national Green Party and movement in the early 1980s. He was the Green Party's state comptroller candidate in New York in 1998 when the candidacies of Al Lewis and Alice Green gave the Green Party the 50,000 votes needed to become an official party.

Hawkins received just less than 50,000 votes in his 2002 run for state Comptroller. He recently pulled 5% of the Mayoral vote in Syracuse.

Hawkins said that as a Green candidate he will offer a progressive alternative to the pro-war, pro-corporate agenda of incumbent Senator Hillary Clinton.

"An independent opposition party like the Greens is the most effective way to advance peace, justice, and a sustainable society. It is not just the peace vote that is open to alternatives. So are the millions without health insurance, the workers who are losing wages and benefits and their very jobs, the environmentalists who see no program to address global warming, and the women and people of color who are losing their recently won rights. All have reason to be dissatisfied with Clinton, who is taking them for granted as she rebrands herself as a "moderate" for her presidential run," Hawkins said.

"Clinton has been a consistent war hawk on the Iraq war and, indeed, all the wars initiated by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush," Hawkins observed. "She is more responsible than any other person in America for killing the single-payer national health insurance bill that had about 100 members of Congress as co-sponsors in 1993."

Dave McReynolds, the 2004 Green Party nominee for US Senate, stated that "along with many other New Yorkers, I am delighted to hear that Howie Hawkins is running for the US Senate. He has my full support. I've known Howie for years, I've know him as a democratic socialist, as an environmentalist, as a strong voice against war and the security state, and as someone who knows that a "new politics" means being inclusive of all races, of being concerned that we reach out to labor, to all the rank and file citizens who have been so badly beaten down by the present system."

Alice Green, who pulled 25% of the vote last year in her Green Party campaign for Mayor of Albany last year, observed, "Howie Hawkins has always been willing to speak truth to power, to organize for justice for those who are oppressed. He has worked closely with communities of color in Syracuse and statewide on issues such as environmental justice, living wage jobs and criminal justice reform. He has been a lifelong opponent of the death penalty. Unlike the incumbent, Howie will speak up on issues such as universal health care, affordable housing and opposition to the war policies of the Bush administration." Dr. Green is Executive Director of the Center for Law and Justice, a civil rights organization dedicated to criminal and social justice.

Hawkins said his campaign would focus on three leading policies:
1. Out Now - End the War - Bring the Troops Home; 2. National Health Insurance (Medicare for All); 3. Clean Energy to Stop Global Warming - A Global Public Works Program to Rewire the Planet with Renewable Energy in 10 Years

"The Greens' Clean Energy Transition provides answers to the interrelated crises of global warming, peak oil and gas, structural unemployment, the polarization of income and wealth, and global trade imbalances leading toward economic stagnation. Recent Pentagon studies have identified global warming and peak oil as the greatest security threats to the US. The Clean Energy Transition demilitarizes our response, replaces the vulnerability of centralized power generation and national grids to sabotage with decentralized renewable energy systems, and creates a global engine of job creation and sustainable economic development," Hawkins said. Hawkins' proposal during the recent Syracuse Mayoral race to create a local public power system is now moving ahead with broad-based support.

Hawkins has been active in movements for peace, justice, the environment, and independent politics since the late 1960s. A former Marine, he helped organize opposition to the Vietnam War and was co-founder of the anti-nuclear Clamshell Alliance in 1976. An active member of the Teamster's Union, he presently works unloading trucks and rail cars at UPS.