Professor plans to challenge Gov. Cuomo in Dem primary
By Carl Campanile
June 12, 2014 | 10:40pm
It looks like Gov. Cuomo will face a Democratic primary in his bid for re-reelection.
Liberal professor Zephyr Teachout told a Manhattan Democratic club that petitions to advance her candidacy will be circulating beginning Friday.
Teachout challenged Cuomo for the Working Families Party ballot line last month. Cuomo beat her surprising insurgency but only after much arm twisting by Mayor de Blasio and union leaders who bankroll the leftist WFP.
Teachout announced her campaign team while seeking the endorsement of the Village Independent Club Thursday night.
WFP field director Mile Boland is quitting his party post to run her campaign.
“We’re coming out with our petitions (Friday),” Boland told the ViD members.
He said a running mate for lieutenant governor “we’re super excited about” also will be announced shortly.
Labor lawyer Arthur Schwartz is her treasurer.
Teachout, a professor at Fordham University, said she hopes to raise enough money to run a credible campaign against the well-funded incumbent.”
“My commitment to this campaign is I will tell the truth,” she said.
Teachout's campaign website:
Zephyr is an organizer, educator and scholar who grew up on a farm on a dirt road five miles from a small town, with four siblings, sheep, chickens and a pig named Budweiser.
Zephyr is running for Governor because New Yorkers need an economy and democracy that actually works for them--not just the wealthy few.
Zephyr is committed to making our politics more responsive to the needs and values of working and middle-class families. In 2004, she led online organizing for Howard Dean’s presidential campaign, where she pioneered new ways of giving voice and power to people in our democracy.
As a leading advocate to help prevent wealthy and corporate donors from buying our democracy, Zephyr's arguments were cited in the Citizens United case by Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Zephyr’s own book – Corruption in America – will be published by Harvard University Press this September.
Zephyr was the first National Director of the Sunlight Foundation, an anti-corruption group, and spearheaded a national campaign to expose the political connections behind earmarks. After the financial crisis of 2008, Zephyr co-founded A New Way Forward, a group dedicated to breaking up the power of Wall Street banks.
Zephyr has been a law professor at Fordham for the last several years, talking, teaching, and organizing about how to build a better state for all of us. A fighter for ordinary folks--what better definition is there of a New Yorker! She currently lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
