Gov. Andrew Cuomo, his democratic running mate, former Rep. Kathy Hochul, and other women’s rights advocates spoke to a cheering crowd of union members and local elected officials as part of an upstate bus tour to promote a 10-point women’s rights plan.
Cuomo’s Women’s Equality Act failed in the state Senate, when neither party could muster enough votes for an abortion rights provision. Now Cuomo and Hochul are making it a campaign issue.
While in Syracuse on a three-city upstate tour on a bus they’re calling the Women’s Equality Express, Cuomo promised to -- for the third time -- push the Women’s Equality Act through the state legislature.
“The state of New York will declare women equality, and the other state’s will follow," Cuomo said. "You do it on election day and the other state’s will follow."
Cuomo says the state Senate has refused to put the legislation up for a vote.
"I’d rather we have an honest disagreement and they vote no, and it goes down," the governor said. "But not to vote means they don’t want the people of the state to know how they voted. And the people of the state deserve to know how they voted, especially on such an important issue.”
The governor also says opponents of his abortion rights bill, which include his Republican challenger Rob Astorino, will pay at the polls.
“If you want to be against those ten points, then you be against those ten points at your political risk,” Cuomo said, to applause. “Because women want full equality in this society, and they want that bill of rights passed.”
Several women speakers tried to tie Astorino to the views of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is pro-life and whose state is closing abortion clinics. Astorino campaigned with Perry this week.
The Republican candidate for governor has said while he is pro-life, he would not act to take away women’s rights in the federal Roe v. Wade decision.
Green Party gubernatorial candidate Howie Hawkins wasn’t allowed into the rally at Syracuse’s Southwest Community Center. But outside he suggested that Cuomo’s inclusion of the abortion plank in the agenda is nothing but a campaign stunt, noting that the nine other items in the Act would have passed the legislature last year or the year before.
Hawkins also says Cuomo is ignoring one of the biggest issues facing poor and working class women.
"We need to provide real jobs for women in poverty, full employment," Hawkins said. "So there are a whole lot of things we should be doing for working women that this governor is not.”
