City Hall
New York, NY
http://www.cityhallnews.com/newyork/article-1273-citizens-action-to-endorse-schneiderman-for-ag.html
By David Freedlander
Progressive stalwarts Citizen Action will endorse State Sen. Eric Schneiderman for attorney general Tuesday.
The endorsement comes at a critical point in the campaign season, according to Karen Scharff, the group’s executive director.
“We looked at the field and we looked at the track record and history of the different candidates. Looking at that, we knew we wanted to endorse Eric,” said Scharff, citing work with Schneiderman on access to health care, environmental justice and consumer protection.” We have worked closely with him and we feel confidant he will be a champion of our issues.”
Scharff said that due to the organization’s long-standing ties with Schneiderman, they scrapped their usual candidate-screening panel, with the group’s 20-member board simply casting a unanimous vote for Schneiderman.
Citizen Action has 20,000 active members around the state, and sends volunteers to work on endorsed campaigns. They are also a key voting bloc in the Working Families Organization, the affiliated non-profit which drives the endorsement decisions of the Working Families Party. Schneiderman is seeking the WFP support.
Scharff said that Citizen Action will be helpful in the primary because of its ability to coordinate with the campaigns of endorsed candidates on how to drive votes going into election day.
Schneiderman said that the endorsement of Citizen Action—along with the nods from 32BJ and 1199—have branded him as the “progressive Democrat” in the five-person field as the campaign closes in on the Democratic convention at the end of the month.
“I’m a lifelong Democrat,” he said. “And what is clear from my record and my actions is that I’m a progressive Democrat.”
