20 Reasons To Vote Green In 2022 (1 Viewer)

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    DarinRobbins

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    By Howie Hawkins and Gloria Mattera

    The Democrats rule New York as a one-party state with veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. But once again this year they failed to use their power to enact popular progressive reforms affecting health care, climate, housing, criminal justice, and abortion rights.

    The Democrats’ disposal of the following 20 bills are 20 reasons to vote for the Green Party gubernatorial ticket of Howie Hawkins and Gloria Mattera on November 8.

    1. The New York Health Act would have created a state-level Medicare-for-All program for all New York residents. Versions of it have passed the Assembly since the early 1990s. But the bill has not got out of committee in either chamber since the Democrats regained control of the state Senate in 2018.

    More climate legislation is needed to implement to clean energy and environmental justice goals of the 2019 Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA). While the Green Party regards these goals in CLCPA as too weak, the Greens did support the climate bills pushed by the Climate Can’t Wait coalition to support the CLCPA’s clean energy and environmental justice goals. But these climate bills were not adopted by the legislature:

    2. The Build Public Renewables Act would have enabled the New York Power Authority (NYPA) to build affordable renewable energy and to retrofit public buildings with energy efficiency and electric heat pumps.

    3. The All Electric Buildings Act would have ended fossil-fueled heating and cooling systems in new residential or commercial buildings for buildings up six floors by 2024 and all buildings by 2027

    4. The CLCPA Implementation and Funding Act would have provided $15 billion in the 2022 budget to help fund the clean energy transition.

    5. The Clean Futures Act would have banned new fossil-fueled electric power generation.

    6. The Climate and Community Investment Act would have enacted a progressive carbon tax with rebates to help fund the clean energy transition.

    7. The Fossil Fuel Subsidy Elimination Act would have cut over $330 million in New York tax exemptions to the fossil fuel industry.

    8. The Green New Deal for New York Act would have taxed the rich for over $10 billion a year to help fund the clean energy transition

    9. The Renewable Capitol Act would have required that the State Capitol and Empire State Plaza be powered by renewable energy.

    10. The Teachers’ Fossil Fuel Divestment Act would have required the New York State Teachers’ Retirement System to divest from fossil fuel holdings.

    11. The Energy Efficiency, Equity and Jobs Act would have required that Public Service Commission programs provide job training funds and set hiring targets for disadvantaged communities.

    12. The Cryptocurrency Mining Act did pass. It provides for a two-year moratorium on fossil-fueled cryptocurrency mining. But it grandfathers in the on-site fracked gas powered electricity at Greenidge Generation’s Bitcoin mining plant in Dresden on Seneca Lake. Whether Governor Kathy Hochul will sign it into law is far from certain. The original bill called for a three-year moratorium. The Green Party supports a ban. Cryptocurrency mining is a waste of energy. Even when cryptocurrency is mined with renewable electricity, that is clean electricity that is needed immediately to decarbonize buildings, transportation, and manufacturing.

    The affordable housing crisis in New York has become acute since the Covid eviction moratorium expired in January. In New York City, rents rose 33 percent in 2021, almost double the national rate and the highest increase among the 100 largest U.S. cities. Evictions are accelerating.

    13. The Prohibition of Eviction Without Good Cause Act would have required landlords to have “good cause” to evict tenants and prevented landlords from kicking out tenants just to drastically raise rents. It also would have capped rent increases at 3%, or 1.5 times the annual percent change in the Consumer Price Index, whichever is higher.

    Despite the Black Lives Matter demonstrations after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 that were the largest protest movement in US history, their demands for an end to police and criminal justice system abuses have stalled in New York. These five police and criminal justice reform bills failed:

    14. The Clean Slate Act would have cleared a person's criminal record after completion of their sentence in order to remove barriers to employment, housing, and education for 2.3 million New Yorkers.

    15. The Fair and Timely Parole Act would have required the state Parole Board to evaluate inmates for parole based on current merit and behavior.

    16. The Elder Parole Act would have required that inmates over 55 years old who served 15 or more years be considered for parole.

    17. The Challenging Wrongful Convictions Act would have enabled people wrongfully convicted to clear their names and their records

    18. End Qualified Immunity Act would have ended the US Supreme Court invented doctrine that shields government officials from liability in civil cases and in particular police and correctional officers from culpability for civil rights violations.

    While the state legislature did not see fit to divest the teacher’s pension fund from fossil fuel companies, it did see fit amid a flood of campaign cash from the financial industry to funnel public employee pension funds into high-risk Wall Street “alternative investment” schemes.

    19. The High-Risk Public Employee Pensions Investment Act (our name for A9668A/S8532) will raise from 25% to 35% the portion of state public employee pension funds that can be invested in high-risk “alternative investments" such as hedge funds, private equity, and real estate, sending as much as $54 billion more in retiree savings to risky Wall Street investment stratagems.

    In the wake of the leaked US Supreme Court draft decision to overturn abortion rights, New York Democrats proclaimed they would enshrine abortion rights as well as gender equality in the New York state constitution. Then they failed to pass the proposed Equality Amendment to do so.

    20. The Equality Amendment would have started the process of enacting a state constitutional amendment to prohibit discrimination based on a person’s race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, and sex — including pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, access to reproductive care including abortion, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.
     
    every

    time

    you

    post

    it seems like an advertisement
    I've not seen you once participate in any other topic or discussion on this forum, other than the ones you start
     
    Reading the list of the allegedly disposed of bills, it reads a Republican agenda, not a Democrat agenda.

    The OP is just cut & paste propaganda. Nothing to see here.
     
    I will note that the problem with Democrats is that they fail to do what they were elected to do.
    Republicans have the opposite problem.
     
    Reading the list of the allegedly disposed of bills, it reads a Republican agenda, not a Democrat agenda.

    The OP is just cut & paste propaganda. Nothing to see here.
    How on earth can Medicare For All, converting to 100% renewable energy, and ending qualified immunity for police officers ever be construed as a Republican agenda? The point of the post is that these bills could easily be passed by the New York state legislature but the Democrats in control refuse to put them to a vote. The Green Party supports these bills and would wish to see them passed.
     
    How on earth can Medicare For All, converting to 100% renewable energy, and ending qualified immunity for police officers ever be construed as a Republican agenda?
    Proposing those would be a Democrat agenda; disposing of those bill would be a Republican agenda. which is what you claimed, that the Democrats disposed of those bills:

    The Democrats’ disposal of the following 20 bills are 20 reasons to vote for the Green Party gubernatorial ticket of Howie Hawkins and Gloria Mattera on November 8.

    The GP's only function now is to take votes away from the DNC, just like the Libertarians take votes away from the GOP. They have nothing of real substance.

    Also, what do we care about NY?
     
    Proposing those would be a Democrat agenda; disposing of those bill would be a Republican agenda. which is what you claimed, that the Democrats disposed of those bills:



    The GP's only function now is to take votes away from the DNC, just like the Libertarians take votes away from the GOP. They have nothing of real substance.

    Also, what do we care about NY?
    I now understand what you meant, but the fact is that the Democrats control both houses of the state legislature where it would be easy to pass anything they wanted and they have refused to have these proposals even put up for a vote. Their deliberate blocking of these progressive policies reveals the true nature of the Democratic Party and why the Green Party and a Green candidate for governor is needed to advocate for these proposals. As for why I care about New York, the answer is simple. It's my home, and I've lived here all of my life.
     
    I now understand what you meant, but the fact is that the Democrats control both houses of the state legislature where it would be easy to pass anything they wanted and they have refused to have these proposals even put up for a vote. Their deliberate blocking of these progressive policies reveals the true nature of the Democratic Party and why the Green Party and a Green candidate for governor is needed to advocate for these proposals. As for why I care about New York, the answer is simple. It's my home, and I've lived here all of my life.
    Sorry to hear.

    Anyway, gonna need some citations there for those bills that you claim the Democrats killed/disposed of.

    For the record, I am not a Democrat. I am anti-GOP.
     
    every

    time

    you

    post

    it seems like an advertisement
    I've not seen you once participate in any other topic or discussion on this forum, other than the ones you start
    I think you hit the nail on the head. This is like Tulsi Gabbard levels of anti-DNC programming from the alleged 'left.'
     
    To track the status of these bills, you can do a title search at this website. You will find that most of these bills have been lingering in the state legislature for years without any significant action taken on them, despite their progressive qualities and the Democrat supermajorities in both houses.

     
    At this point in time, with Rs tacking hard toward authoritarianism if not actual fascism, urging progressives to vote third party is only aiding and abetting the R party. I don’t know how you can look at it any other way.

    The Democratic Party doesn’t hold a hard and fast ideological line, unlike the Republicans; progressives are present and accounted for. They have primaried establishment Democrats before and won. If they cannot win enough seats to get their agenda passed in NY, the answer isn’t to leave the party, especially with a dangerous R party lurking these days. The answer is to either win more seats or negotiate with more mainstream Democrats to accomplish what they can.

    At this point in time, I see the Green Party as working against democracy. That’s not fair to them, possibly, but it’s the current political reality. To continue to do as they do, knowing what they know about the R party, is political incompetence.
     
    You want a viable Green party? Or any alternative party?
    Get ranked choice voting enacted.
    Otherwise, the Greens are just Republicans in hippie clothing and the Libertarians are Democrats in camo.
     
    There is a Catch-22 where we are told we can't vote Green until we get Ranked Choice Voting, but the Democrats will never support Ranked Choice Voting. The Green Party is the only party that officially supports RCV, which is yet another sign that we are distinct from the Democrats in terms of our platform and ideology. We are not just disgruntled Democrats who need to be nudged back into the fold by sheep dog candidates like Bernie Sanders.

    The problem with the reasoning expressed above is that I have heard it for more than 20 years. Each election we are told that this year is too important to vote Green, and maybe Greens can be supported in the future. But the future where people are free to vote for what they want never comes. It's a deliberate strategy by the Democrat leadership to maintain a voter base no matter what they do. They are under no pressure to change. The Green Party, besides having a completely different and distinct platform and political ideology as a declared ecosocialist party, can at the very least apply outside pressure to the Democrats to move to the left. In New York, the deadline to change voter registration in order to vote in the primary and general election are way before the primary season. In other words, people would have to register Democrat without knowing what their options are in the Democrat primary election. That is another capturing strategy by the party. If you're going to vote for the Democrats no matter what, eventually you end being the one to throw your vote away.
     
    You want a viable Green party? Or any alternative party?
    Get ranked choice voting enacted.
    Otherwise, the Greens are just Republicans in hippie clothing and the Libertarians are Democrats in camo.

    Even if ranked voting was enacted, it wouldn't help the GP. Their self-labels, distinct lack of political strategy, and distinct lack of leaders will still doom them to being the party that takes away votes from the DNC.
     
    There is a Catch-22 where we are told we can't vote Green until we get Ranked Choice Voting, but the Democrats will never support Ranked Choice Voting. The Green Party is the only party that officially supports RCV, which is yet another sign that we are distinct from the Democrats in terms of our platform and ideology. We are not just disgruntled Democrats who need to be nudged back into the fold by sheep dog candidates like Bernie Sanders.

    The problem with the reasoning expressed above is that I have heard it for more than 20 years. Each election we are told that this year is too important to vote Green, and maybe Greens can be supported in the future. But the future where people are free to vote for what they want never comes. It's a deliberate strategy by the Democrat leadership to maintain a voter base no matter what they do. They are under no pressure to change. The Green Party, besides having a completely different and distinct platform and political ideology as a declared ecosocialist party, can at the very least apply outside pressure to the Democrats to move to the left. In New York, the deadline to change voter registration in order to vote in the primary and general election are way before the primary season. In other words, people would have to register Democrat without knowing what their options are in the Democrat primary election. That is another capturing strategy by the party. If you're going to vote for the Democrats no matter what, eventually you end being the one to throw your vote away.

    It's not a Democrat plot. It's math.
     

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