Conservative Judges on the Green's Line?
A number of local Greens have gotten their absentee ballot and wondered why there are Conservative Republican Judges running on the Green Party's line. Have we endorsed them? No. The Green Party has not endorsed any of these candidates for Judge in any local race this year. What happened was the result of what played out earlier in the year in which we told you about during the Primary season.
For any other race, if a non-Green wants to run for office on the Green line, they need to get petition signatures of Greens, like we do, but then they need a "Wilson Pekula" which is written permission by the county party's chair(s) that the person can run on that line. What we discovered this year is Judges are exempt from that law. They do not need permission to run, just the petition signatures. Usually, the fact that we need such few signatures to get on the ballot works in our favor. In this case, it is the opposite.
If we find out about a non-Green Judge trying to get signatures, our only recourse is to find a Green to run against them in the Primary. We put out a call for Greens to run in the places we knew about, but there were no takers. A Democrat, Chris Ciaccio, approached the party and asked if we would be OK with him running for Surrogate Court on our line. We interviewed him and found him to be a good choice, so we "endorsed" him, but he lost in the Primary for the Green line to the Republican.
So, yes your ballot has Conservative Republicans on the Green line. No, we were not able to keep them off. No, we do not endorse any of them and ask that you actually DON'T vote for any candidates for Judge on the Green line.
Are there Greens on your ballot you SHOULD vote for?
Of course. In a recent development, a seat on the Monroe County Legislature opened up and one of our co-chairs, Chris Edes, will be running to fill the seat in the 25th Legislative District. If you haven't seen your ballot yet and want to know if you are in that district, you can click here to find out.
And then there is Howie Hawkins & Angela Walker. We cannot stress this enough. It is imperative that every progressive in Monroe County votes for Howie Hawkins for President. As you can see, the Green Party and our values are always under attack. If it is not by conservative judges, it's by Democrats. In this case, this year's state budget, written and passed by Democrats, increased the threshold for 3rd parties to remain on the ballot to an unacceptable level. So if Howie Hawkins does not get 130,000 votes for President, the Green Party will lose it's ballot status.
The same new law makes it extremely more difficult to run as an independent so this effectively means there will be no more local Green candidates to choose from in Monroe County or the rest of New York State. We will have LESS choice on the ballot when we need MORE.
Here's what you can do to help save the Green Party:
Vote for Howie Hawkins & Angela Walker. (It's a safe vote as the Dems have NYS wrapped up)
Like the Howie Hawkins campaign FB Page.
Follow Howie on Twitter and Instagram.
Share, retweet, and like all of the campaign social media.
And of course, donate to the campaign.
It's pretty simple, the Green Party has always been under attack by the two corporate parties. Will you help protect us?
The Good , the Bad and the Wonderful Ugly
Long postponed, the "put-up or shut-up" moment has arrived for the Greens.
Greens Begin Campaign Against Joe Biden
Today, the Green Party has begun it's nationwide effort to add its voice to the growing dissent against Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Read our press release below
Read moreGOP Mixed Messages Threaten American Lives
The GOP is harming America with its mixed messaging on Covid-19. Here is the Green Party of Monroe County's press release of May 1st, 2020.
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Green Party Calls Out City Council Members Fast Tracking Cobbs Hill Project
Green Party Calls Out City Council Members Fast Tracking Cobbs Hill Project
The Steering Committee of the Green Party of Monroe County has expressed its objection to both the process and potential outcome of the Rochester City Council’s pushing through a proposed plan to completely tear down affordable housing in Cobbs Hill Park and replace it with a more expensive housing complex that will displace many of the people who now live there.
“There are two issues here,” commented Green Party Co-Chair, Dave Sutliff-Atias. “First is the lack of transparency. The Neighborhood and Business Development Committee put this legislation on the meeting agenda with about 24 hours’ notice to the public. That’s working for developers not for the citizens they are supposed to represent. The second issue is about the plan itself. This plan tears down 60 affordable units of housing to replace them with a similar 60 apartments with an additional 40 market rate units. If the City is so bent on creating more housing and has the resources to do so they should renovate Cobbs Hill Apartments as the current tenants want and build another 100 units of actual affordable housing somewhere else.”
Time to restart the war on poverty
50 years ago today President Johnson declared war on poverty. This went well as the poverty rate was almost halved over the next 35 years from 20% to 11%. Unfortunately since 1999 poverty has risen steadily to over 15% and child poverty is almost 50% higher at 22%. As bad as these national numbers are things are much worse in many of our major cities. In Rochester poverty stands at 31.5% and child poverty at 46%.
Read moreSelf Determination in politics - Part 1
Voter level
A lot of people don't vote. Recent turn out in the primary democrat vote was 16% or there about. The current Mayor is standing down and it's the winner of the Democratic primary, Lovely Warren, heading onto November 5th with our very own Alex White.
Voter turnout has been getting lower for years. In areas such as the City of Rochester the Democrats are seen to have a unbreakable hold on the city, with a reverse picture in the County.
This is creating a worrying trend, parties running unopposed in their respective areas. This means that the voter turn out controls the picture of this City for 4 years. That voter turnout sits usually in the low 20s percentage wise.
4 out of 5 people are not voting. 4 out of 5 people are not voting and that is leading the voting minority to run this city. There are several instances in the world where parties run unopposed and the minority opinion rules the roost, they are normally coined as dictatorships, we have dictatorships sheltering under the umbrella of democracy.
You have an alternative to not voting, it is called the green party. A common myth about voting in the US: You can't vote outside of your registration, this is not true: unhappy democrat in the city, you can vote green... republican not feeling the way the city is headed? Vote green. Working families party? We're for keeping families working, supported and comfortable in the city.
All you need do is take a look at our policies, and self-determine... vote as you, not as expected.. have any of your expectations come to pass in the way the city is headed?
It's your city, it's your life and it's not a rehearsal. Vote row F on November 5th
Systems Change
The green party is no longer a fringe element in Rochester. Thanks to the work of Alex White in the last few years and our candidate slate this year, the word is getting out that you can vote green.
One example that I would like to highlight is policing and crime. We do want change in the position of Police Chief, we do want change in the way the police deals with situations and we do want better visibility in the community for the police.
Who do we want this for? The community and the police.
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