June, 09 2020, 12:00am EDT
People's Action Endorses New York Movement Politics Candidates
People's Action today endorsed a slate of five New York state-level candidates in the upcoming June 23 New York Democratic primary election. The candidates are running movement-politics, people-powered campaigns and will fight for the People's Action agenda once elected. Each of these candidates is also endorsed by one of People's Actions' New York member organizations, VOCAL-NY or Citizen Action of New York.
Today's endorsed candidates include:
WASHINGTON
People's Action today endorsed a slate of five New York state-level candidates in the upcoming June 23 New York Democratic primary election. The candidates are running movement-politics, people-powered campaigns and will fight for the People's Action agenda once elected. Each of these candidates is also endorsed by one of People's Actions' New York member organizations, VOCAL-NY or Citizen Action of New York.
Today's endorsed candidates include:
- Adam Bojak - State Assembly District 149
- Sam Fein - State Assembly District 108
- Matt Toporowski - Albany County District Attorney
- Diana Richardson - State AssemblyDistrict 43
- Kim Smith - State Senate District 61
"Candidates who put people and the planet first are essential to repairing the damage that corporations and the rich have done to New York State," People's Action Director of Movement Governing Brooke Adams said. "The candidates we endorsed today run people-powered campaigns and are already champions for the multiracial working class. We are proud to have their backs."
Adam Bojak, State Assembly District 149
Adam Bojak is a tenants' rights attorney and housing activist in Western New York, running a grassroots, people-powered campaign.
"Our campaign is excited and honored to have the endorsement of People's Action," Bojak said. "Attending the People's Wave convention in Washington, D.C. last year was a formative experience in my politics, and the People's Platform underscores our own platform from top to bottom, and we will fight to achieve those goals for the residents of New York."
Sam Fein, State Assembly District 108
Sam Fein fights for a society that values everyday people over the interests of corporations. As a two-term Albany County legislator, he won improvements for working families across the county. He co-sponsored legislation to guarantee all employees paid sick leave, led the fight to turn vacant buildings into community-owned housing and passed legislation to "ban the box," ending employment discrimination for formerly incarcerated people.
"I'm excited to have the endorsement of People's Action, because we both believe that the road to progress must go through our communities," Fein said.
Matt Toporowski, Albany County District Attorney
Matt Toporowski, an Upstate New York native, has worked for appellate judges, tried cases as a prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, and been appointed as a special prosecutor. An active member of his community, leading his neighborhood association and serving on the board of a local high school, Matt cares deeply about people and helping to solve problems.
"I'm ready to tackle the long history of mass incarceration and structural racism that has harmed so many people for so long," Toporowski said. "The old approach to the justice system can't continue. I'm proud to work with People's Action to demand and implement a different vision for the justice system - one that's rooted in truth, transfers power to the community, and invests in people."
Diana Richardson, State Assembly District 43
Diana Richardson is the incumbent Assemblywoman for the 43rd Assembly District in Brooklyn, New York representing the neighborhoods of Crown Heights, Prospect Lefferts Gardens, Wingate, and East Flatbush in the state capitol. She was first elected in 2015 in a special election and was the first elected official in New York State's history to be elected using only the Working Family Party line, and the first elected official in New York State to win her election refusing corporate and real estate donations. As assemblywoman, her accomplishments include passing the strongest tenant protections in our State's history, fighting for workers rights, and using her voice to fight police violence in our communities.
"As the assemblywoman for one of the districts in New York hardest hit by the COVID crisis, the housing crisis, and by police brutality, I am honored to stand with Peoples' Action and their affiliates in New York to fight for true justice," Richardson said. "This endorsement means the world to me and I will continue to make you proud in Albany!"
Kim Smith, State Senate District 61
Kim Smith spent 30 years in service pertaining to community outreach, policy work, coalition building, activism and organizing. She has learned that in order to fight for change, we need to be in the decision making room.
"Through gerrymandering, the Democratic voices of District 61 residents have been intentionally overlooked and undervalued," Smith said. "Having the endorsement of People's Action, a national organization that has stood with so many for so long, is not only an honor, but carries with it the expectation that I will deliver and restore our voice. And I will! We will not be silent!"
People's Action builds the power of poor and working people, in rural, suburban, and urban areas to win change through issue campaigns and elections.
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More than 120 mostly English lawyers on Friday published a "declaration of conscience" pledging to withhold their services from "supporting new fossil fuel projects" and "action against climate protesters exercising their democratic right of peaceful protest."
The United Kingdom has in recent years faced protests from numerous climate groups, including those with more pronounced direct actions like Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain, and Extinction Rebellion. As part of those protests, participants have filled the streets, blocked fossil fuel facilities, glued scientific papers and themselves to a government building, called out major law firms for "defending climate criminals," and even, controversially, tossed tomato soup on one of Vincent van Gogh's glass-protected paintings.
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The attorneys, collectively calling themselves Lawyers Are Responsible, are supported by the groups Good Law Project and Plan B.Earth—whose director, Tim Crosland, highlighted that "the U.N. has said we're on a 'highway to climate hell' and that to get off it, we need to stop new fossil fuel developments now. But behind every new oil and gas deal sits a lawyer getting rich."
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As Lawyers Are Responsible's website details in response to some right-wing outrage over the declaration:
The classic example of the cab rank rule in action is of a criminal barrister who accepts a brief to represent a person accused of murder, against whom there is strong evidence of guilt. In that situation, there is no conflict between the cab rank rule and the interests of justice. The barrister is agreeing to perform his or her role within a system of justice that produces, on the whole, just outcomes. By representing the accused, the barrister is merely helping to ensure that there is a fair trial and is serving the greater good.
The signatories to the declaration are convinced that at the present time offering their services in support of new fossil fuel projects or action against peaceful climate protesters would not serve the greater good.
Good Law Project director and declaration signatory Jolyon Maugham wrote in a Friday opinion piece for The Guardian that "like Big Tobacco, the fossil fuel industry has known for decades what its activities mean. They mean the loss of human life and property, which the civil law should prevent but does not."
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The Guardianreported that "18 barristers, including six king's counsel, have signed the declaration" and "will now self-refer to the Bar Standards Board." The newspaper noted that while barristers can face fines for rule-breaking, "the consequences can be more far-reaching for junior members of the profession, who can find themselves blocked from receiving the 'silk' awarded to king's counsel, or from promotion to the judiciary."
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"Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution."
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Zak added:
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