State Legislators Need to Come to Albany in December to Clean Up Elections

Green officials said today the Public Campaign Finance Commission's decision to raise ballot access thresholds to 2% of the vote or 130,000 votes (whichever is greater) for presidential and gubernatorial elections was an anti-democratic decision that would limit voter choice in New York.

ALBANY, 11/20/2019 — Green Party of New York (GPNY) officers said today the Public Campaign Finance Commission is making a mockery of democracy, and it appears their secret plan all along has been a bipartisan effort to eliminate third parties and real competition from New York State politics.

Green Party officers called the public campaign finance plan taking shape from the Commission a cartel agreement between Democrats and Republicans to protect incumbents and the two-party duopoly. Absurdly high contribution limits, initial matching funds thresholds, the ability to carry over campaign funds from previous cycles, and the specter that third parties will be frozen out make it impossible to imagine this is about increasing competition or grassroots democracy. The Greens called on the Legislature to return in December and alter the Commission's recommendations to create truly democratic campaign finance reform.

Read the November 1, 2019 op-ed in The New York Daily News from GPNY co-chair Peter LaVenia taking issue with specious claims by Governor Cuomo, former Governor Paterson, and Public Finance Commission member Jay Jacobs, that campaign finance and third-parties can't co-exist.

Albany, October 29, 2019 — Green Party officers said that the plan floated by Campaign Finance Commission co-chair Jay Jacobs to raise the minimum vote total for ballot access to roughly 250,000 votes was an unacceptable attack on real third parties in New York. Party officers said the Commission should instead ban fusion and make ballot access for third parties easier, including allowing any statewide office vote totals to qualify a party. (See NY Times article.)

Albany — Green Party officers said the Campaign Finance  Commission's latest about-face on whether to allow out-of-district donations to count towards a proposed public matching funds system highlights the flawed nature of public matching funds.

The Green Party of New York (GPNY) expressed its disagreement with the 'Long Island Six' State Senators who called last week for an end to the moratorium on the Williams gas pipeline construction to Long Island. GPNY officers said an immediate halt to fossil fuel infrastructure construction was an absolute necessity to combat the climate crisis. Green leaders instead called on the state to require use of renewable energy sources for new home construction and a program to aid retrofitting old houses. This has long been part of the Green Party's vision of the Green New Deal.

It's the Penultimate Edition of our 2019 Legislative Report Card Series, brought to you by GPNY Summer Intern Dylan Lynch! We've been breaking down what Democrats in Albany achieved (or failed to achieve) in the legislative session, with control of both houses and the governor's mansion. This week: Cuomo and the Leg decriminalized marijuana...OR DID THEY? (Spoiler: Only sort-of!)

New York, over the past twenty years, has become what the Drug Policy Alliance calls the “marijuana arrest capital of the world.” During this time, in lamentable depths of the so-called “tough on crime” era, there were over 800,000 arrests for small scale marijuana possession with, on average, sixty people being arrested statewide per day for the offense. Despite the fact that marijuana consumption is rather equally balanced amongst race and ethnicity, Latino and African-American individuals consistently made up roughly 80% of those arrested on marijuana charges in New York City. And in 2016 that percentage was 85%, the highest since 2006 when it reached 89% under Michael Bloomberg. These arrests, no matter how minor the offense, leave longstanding records that hinder the formerly arrested/incarcerated from gaining or re-gaining employment and housing, thus further exacerbating the racial wealth gap structurally maintained by our “New Jim Crow”: the drug war and mass incarceration.

NEW YORK —The Green Party of New York (GPNY) said today's meeting of the Public Campaign Financing Commission, empaneled by the Governor and Legislature, has the opportunity to propose urgently-needed reforms to broaden and strengthen democracy in New York. GPNY officers stated they “support a system of full public campaign financing, broader than had been proposed by the Governor,” and the “banning of fusion.” Party officers also promised their members will express support of these reforms to the commission. 

Welcome to the second post in our series breaking down what Democrats in Albany achieved (or failed to achieve) in the legislative session, having gained control of both houses and the governor's mansion. Cuomo says they achieved "99.9%" of what they wanted. So...what explains the New York Health Act for single payer going MIA? GPNY 2019 Summer Intern Dylan Lynch explains.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, given our penchant for fostering violence, death, and religiously upholding the “infallible” market wherever we leave a trail, the United States willfully and irresponsibly persists as the only “major” nation on the planet to refuse guaranteed healthcare to all its residents through some form of single payer system. To this day, 30,000-45,000 people across the nation die annually from a lack of healthcare – more than the casualty equivalent of a “domestic” Vietnam War every two years. Nearly one million people remain uninsured in New York state alone, while countless more are woefully underinsured, incapable of affording skyrocketing deductibles and prescription drug prices (in fact, fifty-seven-percent of Americans cannot afford a five-hundred-dollar emergency without going into debt, and when we speak of crippling debt we’re really talking about a form of bondage to a system of predatory institutions).