(from www.howiehawkins.com)
For Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, the November election is a lifetime pattern.
“Howie has been doing what he’s doing since he was like 14,” said Ursula Rozum, one of Hawkins’ campaign managers. “He’s been very committed to social change his whole life.”
What he’s doing now is running for the Syracuse Common Council from District 4 as the Green Party candidate. It is his 19th political run. His opponent this time is Khalid Bey, also a social activist and the Democratic candidate. Both are trying to succeed Democrat Tom Seals, who reached his term limit. District 4 includes the central portion of the city including downtown Syracuse, Brighton, Southwest, University Hill and University neighborhoods.
The election is Nov. 8.
Hawkins was not available for an interview. He was out of town, he said in an email, on “a long-scheduled No Nukes speaking tour of the South,” from Raleigh, N.C., to Gainesville, Fla.
The trip was classic Hawkins and part of what he represents in politics, say friends and political experts.
“Often people vote for third-party candidates — and Howie Hawkins would be a perfect example of this — as a way of sort of making a statement,” said Kristi Andersen, a political scientist at Syracuse University.
Hawkins, 58, is originally from San Francisco, Calif. He moved to Syracuse in 1991 and has been a fixture in city and state politics ever since. He moved to Syracuse, Hawkins has said, to develop cooperatives for CommonWorks, a federation of cooperatives.
Hawkins is a former Marine, who was drafted during Vietnam but never deployed. He attended Dartmouth College, where he joined the anti-war movement. Today, in addition to pursuing politics, he works the night shift unloading trucks at UPS in Syracuse.
Hawkins is the co-founder of Solidarity Committee of Central New York and co-founder of Public Power Coalition of Central New York. He is also a board member for the South Side Food Cooperative and for the South Side Community Coalition. Hawkins is also a member of the South Side Cooperative Grocery Store Project and of the Syracuse Municipal Broadband Initiative. He’s been a member of Teamsters Local 317 since 2001.
His political career began, Hawkins has said, in 1967 as an organizer in movements for peace, justice, labor and the environment. In 1984, he was a co-founder of the National Green Party. Locally, his campaigns for election include: Common Council in 1993, 1994, 1995, 2003 and 2007; the 25th Congressional District in 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008; Common Councilor-at-Large in 2007 and 2003; U.S. Senate in 2006; mayor of Syracuse in 1997 and 2005; New York State comptroller in 1998 and 2002; Onondaga County executive in 1999 and governor in 2010. He has lost every race.
He runs, said campaign manager Rozum, because he has “really good solutions” for jobs, transportation and crime.
Hawkins’ main platforms include:
- A Community Hiring Hall where inner city residents could come to get city-funded jobs.
- Fully funded schools and city services through progressive tax reforms that raise taxes on the rich.
- More jobs and recreation programs for youth, as a way to cut crime and violence.
- Lower utility rates for residents and businesses through a city-owned public power company.
- Community-owned businesses planned, financed and advised by a Municipal Development Bank.
- Bike and pedestrian paths for District 4.
For Hawkins, said campaign manager Rozum, politics and public advocacy is a calling. “It’s kind of like,” said Rozum, “being like a nun or something.”
(Caitlin M. Francis is a graduate student in broadcast and digital journalism.)
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