OntheWilderSide

The only way that the Green Party can regain ballot status in NY is to get 50,000 votes for their Governor candidate in 2010. This opportunity comes only once every four years, and it only applies to the Governor’s race. Gaining ballot status will enable the Green Party to run more peace candidates, more single-payer candidates, more anti-fracking candidates, and more sustainable energy candidates. The last time that the Green Party of New York State had ballot status it set the record for running the most Green candidates of any state.

Howie Hawkins, the Green Party of New York State candidate for Governor, welcomed Rick Lazio to the 2010 race following his selection at today’s Republican conclave. Hawkins said that Lazio’s nomination, as usual, gave the Wall Street financiers and other corporate leaders two candidates in the Governor’s race – Lazio and Cuomo. The Green Party offers an alternative for the other 95% of New York voters.

Hawkins, a member of the Teamsters from Syracuse added:

Boss Tweed always felt that the voters should select the winner – as long as he got to select the candidates. Mr. Lazio has made millions in fees from Wall Street since his last statewide race,” said Hawkins.”And Democrat Andrew Cuomo, just like all of his potential Republican opponents, has explicitly ruled out higher taxes on the rich while calling for a state spending cap and a freeze on state workers’ pay and benefits. Cuomo’s fiscal and economic policies, along with President Obama’s freeze on all federal discretionary spending except the military, show that the Democrats have purged every last remnant of their New Deal legacy. They are taking us back to Hoover’s economics, a recipe for a vicious circle of depression and debt.

A recent article by Wayne Barrett in the Village Voice – “People’s Champion? Rick Lazio Is a Wall Street Creature” – was based on a examination of former Congressperson Lazio’s public papers donated to Vassar College. Barrett found that

As Lazio saw it, his job in the House was to feed and care for the industry symbolized by the 7,000-pound bull sculpture at Bowling Green park that embodies hard-charging Wall Street. It’s a mission he excelled at, spelled out all too clearly, for example, in the stunning similarities between the memos faxed to him by lobbyists for the Street and the legislation he subsequently favored. In return for his service, Lazio, though a junior member of the House, collected more in financial service contributions than any other Republican member, and after his 12-point loss to Clinton in the Senate race of 2000, was showered again with millions in salaries and bonuses at two glamour jobs concocted for him by the players who figured they still owed him.

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IW: The Time Union in theblog entry entitled Lazio: Bonus ‘reflected the value that I added to the firm’ report that

His base salary last year–pro-rated because he took leave of the firm in September–was $260,000. Lazio was paid a $325,000 salary and $1.3 million bonus for his work for J.P. Morgan in 2008, a year during which the firm received federal money from the TARP program. (It later paid it back.)

Filed under: activism, economy, election, Election 2010, elections, grassroots democracy, Green Party, New York State Politics, Press Release Tagged: | Governor