About Jill Stein
Dr. Jill Stein is a mother, housewife, physician, longtime teacher of internal medicine, and pioneering environmental-health advocate.
She is the co-author of two widely-praised reports, In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development, published in 2000, andEnvironmental Threats to Healthy Aging, published in 2009. The first of these has been translated into four languages and is used worldwide. The reports promote green local economies, sustainable agriculture, clean power, and freedom from toxic threats.
Her "Healthy People, Healthy Planet" teaching program reveals the links between human health, climate security, and green economic revitalization. This body of work has been presented at government, public health and medical conferences, and has been used to improve public policy.
Jill began to advocate for the environment as a human health issue in 1998 when she realized that politicians were simply not acting to protect children from the toxic threats emerging from current science. She offered her services to parents, teachers, community groups and a native Americans group seeking to protect their communities from toxic exposure.
Jill has testified before numerous legislative panels as well as local and state governmental bodies. She played a key role in the effort to get the Massachusetts fish advisories updated to better protect women and children from mercury contamination, which can contribute to learning disabilities and attention deficits in children. She also helped lead the successful campaign to clean up the "Filthy Five" coal plants in Massachusetts, an effort that resulted in getting coal plant regulations signed into law that were the most protective around at that time. Her testimony on the effects of mercury and dioxin contamination from the burning of waste helped preserve the Massachusetts moratorium on new trash incinerator construction in the state.
Jill has appeared as an environmental health expert on the Today Show, 20/20, Fox News, and other programs. She was also a member of the national and Massachusetts boards of directors of the Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her efforts to protect public health has won her several awards including: Clean Water Action's "Not in Anyone's Backyard" Award, the Children's Health Hero" Award, and the Toxic Action Center's Citizen Award.
Having witnessed the ability of big money to stop health protective policies on Beacon Hill, Jill became an advocate for campaign finance reform, and worked to help pass the Clean Election Law. This law was approved by the voters by a 2-1 margin, but was later repealed by the Massachusetts Legislature on an unrecorded voice vote.
In 2002 ADD activists in the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party approached Dr. Stein and asked her to run for Governor of Massachusetts. Dr. Stein accepted, and began her first foray into electoral politics. She was widely credited with being the best informed and most credible candidate in the race.
She has twice been elected to town meeting in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is the founder and past co-chair of a local recycling committee appointed by the Lexington Board of Selectmen.
In 2003, Jill co-founded the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, a non-profit organization that addresses a variety of issues that are important to the health and well-being of Massachusetts communities, including health care, local green economies, and grassroots democracy.
Jill represented the Green-Rainbow Party in two additional races – one for State Representative in 2004 and one for Secretary of State in 2006. In 2006 she won the votes of over 350,000 Massachusetts citizens – which represented the greatest vote total ever for a Green-Rainbow candidate.
In 2008, Jill helped formulate a "Secure Green Future" ballot initiative that called upon legislators to accelerate efforts to move the Massachusetts economy to renewable energy and make development of green jobs a priority. The measure won over 81 per cent of the vote in the 11 districts in which it was on the ballot.
Jill was born in Chicago and raised in suburban Highland Park, Illinois. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1973, and from Harvard Medical School in 1979. Jill enjoys writing and performing music, and enjoys long walks with her Great Dane, Bandita. Dr. Stein lives in Lexington with her husband, Richard Rohrer, also a physician. She has two sons, Ben and Noah, who have graduated from college in the past few years.
She is the co-author of two widely-praised reports, In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development, published in 2000, andEnvironmental Threats to Healthy Aging, published in 2009. The first of these has been translated into four languages and is used worldwide. The reports promote green local economies, sustainable agriculture, clean power, and freedom from toxic threats.
Her "Healthy People, Healthy Planet" teaching program reveals the links between human health, climate security, and green economic revitalization. This body of work has been presented at government, public health and medical conferences, and has been used to improve public policy.
Jill began to advocate for the environment as a human health issue in 1998 when she realized that politicians were simply not acting to protect children from the toxic threats emerging from current science. She offered her services to parents, teachers, community groups and a native Americans group seeking to protect their communities from toxic exposure.
Jill has testified before numerous legislative panels as well as local and state governmental bodies. She played a key role in the effort to get the Massachusetts fish advisories updated to better protect women and children from mercury contamination, which can contribute to learning disabilities and attention deficits in children. She also helped lead the successful campaign to clean up the "Filthy Five" coal plants in Massachusetts, an effort that resulted in getting coal plant regulations signed into law that were the most protective around at that time. Her testimony on the effects of mercury and dioxin contamination from the burning of waste helped preserve the Massachusetts moratorium on new trash incinerator construction in the state.
Jill has appeared as an environmental health expert on the Today Show, 20/20, Fox News, and other programs. She was also a member of the national and Massachusetts boards of directors of the Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her efforts to protect public health has won her several awards including: Clean Water Action's "Not in Anyone's Backyard" Award, the Children's Health Hero" Award, and the Toxic Action Center's Citizen Award.
Having witnessed the ability of big money to stop health protective policies on Beacon Hill, Jill became an advocate for campaign finance reform, and worked to help pass the Clean Election Law. This law was approved by the voters by a 2-1 margin, but was later repealed by the Massachusetts Legislature on an unrecorded voice vote.
In 2002 ADD activists in the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party approached Dr. Stein and asked her to run for Governor of Massachusetts. Dr. Stein accepted, and began her first foray into electoral politics. She was widely credited with being the best informed and most credible candidate in the race.
She has twice been elected to town meeting in Lexington, Massachusetts. She is the founder and past co-chair of a local recycling committee appointed by the Lexington Board of Selectmen.
In 2003, Jill co-founded the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, a non-profit organization that addresses a variety of issues that are important to the health and well-being of Massachusetts communities, including health care, local green economies, and grassroots democracy.
Jill represented the Green-Rainbow Party in two additional races – one for State Representative in 2004 and one for Secretary of State in 2006. In 2006 she won the votes of over 350,000 Massachusetts citizens – which represented the greatest vote total ever for a Green-Rainbow candidate.
In 2008, Jill helped formulate a "Secure Green Future" ballot initiative that called upon legislators to accelerate efforts to move the Massachusetts economy to renewable energy and make development of green jobs a priority. The measure won over 81 per cent of the vote in the 11 districts in which it was on the ballot.
Jill was born in Chicago and raised in suburban Highland Park, Illinois. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College in 1973, and from Harvard Medical School in 1979. Jill enjoys writing and performing music, and enjoys long walks with her Great Dane, Bandita. Dr. Stein lives in Lexington with her husband, Richard Rohrer, also a physician. She has two sons, Ben and Noah, who have graduated from college in the past few years.
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Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Green Party candidate Jill Stein might not have a good chance against Democrat Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, but she has one edge they don’t: her campaign has qualified for federal matching funds.
On July 1, Stein, a physician, became the first Green Party presidential candidate to quality for federal matching funds. Stein joins Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, another third-party candidate who has also qualified for federal matching funds.
Johnson has already received $230,059 in federal matching dollars. Reform Party candidate Buddy Roemer, who has suspended his campaign, received a total of $351,961. As soon as possible, Stein intends to submit her qualifying papers to the Federal Elections Commission, which has 15 days to vet her donations and approve her application.
The matching funds come from a $3 donations that taxpayers can make on their annual tax return. To become eligible for the match, a presidential candidate must be nominated by a political party and raise at least $5,000 in each of at least 20 states. The federal government then matches up to $250 of a donor’s total contributions.
Neither Obama nor Romney receive matching funds because their campaigns plan to raise and spend more than the matching fund limits allow. However, the elections commission has approved about $418 million each for the Republican and Democratic conventions.
“It is a big deal,” said Ben Manski, campaign manager for Stein. Achieving matching-fund status will build the Green Party’s credibility and visibility, Stein said. “I think what it shows is that the Green Party continues to matter and has staying power.”
Florida is among 22 states where Stein raised enough money to qualify for matching funds. She has not yet filed campaign finance reports naming her Florida donors. However, her website reports that as of July 1 she collected $187,412 in contributions, including $5,839 in Florida.
Although various incarnations of the Green Party of the United States have been around since 1996, the party’s most notable presidential candidate was Ralph Nader, who earned the party’s nomination in 1996, 2000 and 2004. In August 2011, actress/comedian Roseanne Barr announced her candidacy on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, declaring that she would not run as a Democrat or a Republican, “because they both suck and they’re both a bunch of criminals.”
Stein, 60, a Lexington, Mass. woman who once ran against Romney for governor, secured a majority of Green Party delegates after the California primary on June 5 and she is expected to officially accept the party’s nomination at its convention, which begins today in Baltimore.
Stein’s platform, called the Green New Deal, includes: creating private and public sector jobs programs; wiping out student loan debt and providing tuition-free education through college; breaking-up Wall Street’s big banks and nationalizing the private-bank dominated Federal Reserve Bank; abolishing the Electoral College and requiring voter-marked paper ballots; cutting military spending in half; promoting green technologies and businesses; and overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizen’s United case, which paved the way for unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions in elections for Congress and the president, as long as the dollars are independent of the campaigns they are intended to help.
After speculation that Stein might name Barr as her running mate, Stein announced on Wednesday that Cheri Honkala, an advocate for the homeless, was her choice for vice president. Honkala is the national coordinator for the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. She grabbed headlines in 2011 when she unsuccessfully ran for sheriff of Philadelphia and vowed to end evictions if elected. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/green-party-presidential-candidate-jill-stein-qual/nPrMX/
**********************************************************On July 1, Stein, a physician, became the first Green Party presidential candidate to quality for federal matching funds. Stein joins Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, another third-party candidate who has also qualified for federal matching funds.
Johnson has already received $230,059 in federal matching dollars. Reform Party candidate Buddy Roemer, who has suspended his campaign, received a total of $351,961. As soon as possible, Stein intends to submit her qualifying papers to the Federal Elections Commission, which has 15 days to vet her donations and approve her application.
The matching funds come from a $3 donations that taxpayers can make on their annual tax return. To become eligible for the match, a presidential candidate must be nominated by a political party and raise at least $5,000 in each of at least 20 states. The federal government then matches up to $250 of a donor’s total contributions.
Neither Obama nor Romney receive matching funds because their campaigns plan to raise and spend more than the matching fund limits allow. However, the elections commission has approved about $418 million each for the Republican and Democratic conventions.
“It is a big deal,” said Ben Manski, campaign manager for Stein. Achieving matching-fund status will build the Green Party’s credibility and visibility, Stein said. “I think what it shows is that the Green Party continues to matter and has staying power.”
Florida is among 22 states where Stein raised enough money to qualify for matching funds. She has not yet filed campaign finance reports naming her Florida donors. However, her website reports that as of July 1 she collected $187,412 in contributions, including $5,839 in Florida.
Although various incarnations of the Green Party of the United States have been around since 1996, the party’s most notable presidential candidate was Ralph Nader, who earned the party’s nomination in 1996, 2000 and 2004. In August 2011, actress/comedian Roseanne Barr announced her candidacy on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, declaring that she would not run as a Democrat or a Republican, “because they both suck and they’re both a bunch of criminals.”
Stein, 60, a Lexington, Mass. woman who once ran against Romney for governor, secured a majority of Green Party delegates after the California primary on June 5 and she is expected to officially accept the party’s nomination at its convention, which begins today in Baltimore.
Stein’s platform, called the Green New Deal, includes: creating private and public sector jobs programs; wiping out student loan debt and providing tuition-free education through college; breaking-up Wall Street’s big banks and nationalizing the private-bank dominated Federal Reserve Bank; abolishing the Electoral College and requiring voter-marked paper ballots; cutting military spending in half; promoting green technologies and businesses; and overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the Citizen’s United case, which paved the way for unlimited spending by corporations and labor unions in elections for Congress and the president, as long as the dollars are independent of the campaigns they are intended to help.
After speculation that Stein might name Barr as her running mate, Stein announced on Wednesday that Cheri Honkala, an advocate for the homeless, was her choice for vice president. Honkala is the national coordinator for the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign. She grabbed headlines in 2011 when she unsuccessfully ran for sheriff of Philadelphia and vowed to end evictions if elected. http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/green-party-presidential-candidate-jill-stein-qual/nPrMX/
Greens in the News – Database of news stories about Greens
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Internationally Renowned Environmentalist Launches Run For U.S. Congress Citing Need For Massive Reorganization Of Government And Business To Deal With World Crises
(Distributed by the Green Party of the United Sates, http://www.gp.org)
For Immediate Release
May 9, 2012
Contact: Ryan D. Harbage
Tel: (347) 470-0210
Email: info@votecolin.org
A New York City author whose book and documentary film No Impact Man helped bring climate change into popular consciousness today announces his candidacy for the United States House of Representatives. Colin Beavan PhD will run on the Green Party ticket in New York's 8th Congressional District, following the vacancy left by the retirement of Representative Edolphus Towns.
Beavan rose to prominence as a spokesman for the international environmental movement after worldwide press and media interest followed the release of his film and book. His campaign, citing "growing world crises" in climate, environment, economics, and energy production, calls for a complete change in priorities including an end to consumption-based economics, massive decentralization of government and business, and huge investment in local communities.
"The economic system is supposed to make people safer and happier, but it can no longer do that because it wasn't designed to deal with our new planetary crises," says Beavan. "The tired old Democratic/Republican debate over taxation isn't going to fix it. We need to create a new, more stable system based on investment in people and local communities instead of shareholders and corporations. We have to face up to climate change, the end of oil, and the failure of consumption to make people happy. Robust local economies help solve all these problems."
Government investment in local businesses creates ten times more jobs than investment at the national level. Local economies have lower reliance on foreign oil and create less climate pollution. Creating conditions to allow people, talent and profits to stay within their communities lowers crime, increases access to education and provides support to at-risk populations like children and the elderly.
"We have a crazy system where our communities' human and financial capital are siphoned away by far-away corporations and government. Then, we beg the same institutions to send us jobs and services. What if we strengthened our communities and didn't have to send our wealth away in the first place? We'd have healthier communities, happy and safer people, much less crime and a greater quality of life for all."
Colin Beavan's campaign organization is an all-volunteer group of citizens who have decided to leave their previous party affiliations out of disillusionment with the lack of solution-based conversation in American politics. Beavan's campaign will issue a series of policy positions in the coming weeks, all of which will be based on strengthening community health, happiness and security in the 8th Congressional District. The campaign will launch a series of listening meetings, to solicit the views of the community in two weeks.
Meanwhile, basic campaign policies, based on strengthening local community include:
- Corporate money out of politics
- A constitutional amendment making the right to vote inalienable
- Massive voter registration and civic engagement promotion
- Keeping youth out of prison (treatment not incarceration)
- An end to stop and frisk
- Food stamps for use at farmer's markets
- Tax breaks for sole proprietorships
- Massive shift of military spending towards education
- U.S. leadership on climate change mitigation and adaptation
- Community-based assisted living programs for the elderly
- Encouragement of service rather than product-based economies
- Prioritizing human connection before goods consumption
The non-electoral goals of Beavan's campaign include:
- Instigating conversation about emergent world issues effectively ignored by
Democrats and Republicans
- Modeling civility and cooperation in politics
- Massive voter registration
- By running a volunteer campaign organization, modeling renewed civic
participation to community, nation, and world
- Promoting community self-determination
All the relevant documentation has been filed with Federal Elections Commission to make Beavan's candidacy official. He is uncontested in his congressional district's Green Party primary and will go straight to general election in November. The Green Party's ballot status in New York State means his name will appear on the ballot.
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Colin Beavan rose to prominence as a spokesperson on environmental and quality of life issues after his year-long experiment in extreme environmental living, No Impact Man, exploded in the international media. He is the founder and executive director of No Impact Project, an international non-profit that empowers citizens to make choices that support the planet, their communities, and help them live a happier, healthier life.
A long-time activist, he sits on the board of directors of New York City's Transportation Alternatives, and is on the advisory councils of Just Food and 350.org , a global organization dedicated to solving the climate crisis. Prior to becoming a champion of the environment, Colin earned his PhD at the University of Liverpool, spent a decade helping social housing providers, drug treatment agencies and hospitals get funding, and wrote books.
The campaign website is at http://www.votecolin.org.
Hi-res images can be found at http://www.votecolin.org/media
For further information or to arrange an interview with Colin Beavan, please contact Ryan Harbage at (347) 470-0210 or info@votecolin.org.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/252016/october-08-2009/colin-beavan
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/84653/april-09-2007/colin-beavan
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/
http://www.noimpactdoc.com/index_m.php
http://us.macmillan.com/noimpactman/ColinBeavan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9Ctt7FGFBo
Green Party to Democratic apologists: The message of the Wall Street protests is not 'Vote Democrat'
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES
http://www.gp.org
For Immediate Release:
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-518-5624, cell 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org
Video and Livestreaming:
Green Party Occupy America http://www.gp.org/campaigns/occupy-america/index.php
Cheri Honkala, Green candidate for Sheriff of Philadelphia, visits Occupy Wall Street http://vimeo.com/29997382
Cheri Honkala speaks at Occupy DC http://www.vimeo.com/30200014
Interview with New York Green Mark Dunlea at Occupy Wall Street http://www.gp.org/video/display.php?ID=59
Interview with Michael O'Neil, Secretary of the Green Party of New York State, Occupy Wall Street http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orcQYUyfUyY
WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders sharply criticized Democratic Party supporters online and in the media who have tried to turn the ongoing Occupy Wall Street, Occupy America, and October 2011 demonstrations across America into an appeal to vote Democrat and reelect President Obama in 2012.
Many of the protesters have expressed their disgust with two-party politics (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/wall-street-protesters-disgusted-parties-14687840) and the influence of corporate money. Organizers have rejected attempts to shoehorn the movement into any party and assert that the protesters come from diverse political persuasions.
Greens, who are participating in the protests and among the organizers, have pointed to the Green Party's alternative vision for America, as expressed in the Green New Deal (http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2010/08/11/62-green-candidates-endorse-green-new-deal) and on the party's web site (http://www.gp.org).
The Green Party offers a platform for peace, economic security for working people, millions of new green jobs in conservation and clean energy development, an end to fossil fuel addiction, real steps for curbing global climate change and restoring the health of the planet, universal health care (Medicare For All), and reforms that would limit the power of corporations and restore the promise of participatory democracy and fair elections. Green candidates do not accept corporate money.
Mark Dunlea, co-founder of the Green Party of New York State: "The Democratic Party does not speak for the Occupy Wall Street, Occupy America, and October 2011 protesters. No political party speaks for the protesters, not even the Green Party. The protesters speak for themselves. The Green Party has endorsed and joined the demos because we share the same frustration and anger as the other protesters. Greens are there because we bring alternative ideas like the Green New Deal. And we're there because we encourage the 99 percent -- We The People -- to organize, end pro-corporate two-party rule, and replace the politicians in public office who enabled Wall Street's theft of America's future. This can only happen through an independent alliance with the same diversity we're seeing at the protests: labor activists, Greens, progressives, anarchists, libertarians, nonvoters, disappointed Democrats and Republicans, and all others who want real change."
Sanda Everette, co-coordinator of the Coordinating Committee of the Green Party of California: "If pro-Democrat web sites and the media believe that the message of the protests is 'Vote Democrat' and 'Reelect Obama' in 2012, they've missed the point. The current demonstrations became necessary after Election Day 2008, when too many liberal, progressive, and antiwar Democrats declared 'Mission Accomplished' with Barack Obama's election victory. The Democratic Party has proved itself as dedicated to Wall Street as the GOP. We look forward to more protests and direct action as the election season unfolds, especially during the 2012 Democratic and Republican conventions."
Farheen Hakeem, Green candidate for the Minnesota State Senate in District 61 (http://www.farheenhakeem.org) and co-chair of the Green Party of the United States: "Say no to the parties of war and corporate money! That's our message to all Americans who are worried about the dangerous direction that the two Titanic Parties have steered our country. If the field of presidential candidates is limited to incumbent Obama and the Republican nominee after the primaries, then everything the Wall Street protesters are talking about will be erased from the election season debate and from the media. Hopes for a progressive challenge in the Democratic primaries are unrealistic. The challenger will inevitably be defeated by the Obama campaign juggernaut, which is already loaded with corporate campaign checks, and the challenger's supporters will find themselves muzzled, with the expectation that they'll vote Democrat."
Terry Baum, Green candidate for Mayor of San Francisco (http://terryjoanbaum.com): "Barack Obama received more Wall Street money than any other candidate in US history. Instead of change, the Obama Administration gave us Phase 2 of the Bush-Cheney agenda: more Wall Street bailouts, more endless war, more offshore oil drilling and the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline, more mountaintop detonation mining. Instead of financial security for Americans, we got plans to slash Social Security and Medicare. We got minimal assistance for people facing home foreclosures and more crushing debt for college students. We got silence about the racist death penalty and record-high mass incarceration of young black, brown, and poor people in a greedy private prison system. We got a health care bill with mandates that are a direct public subsidy for the insurance industry (originally a Republican proposal), but no universal health care or controls for skyrocketing medical costs. We got impunity for Bush officials who authorized torture and other war crimes -- and more extraordinary rendition, more warrantless surveillance of US citizens, more erosion of due process, more persecution of whistleblowers, and even a secret presidential hit list of Americans targeted for assassination."
Cheri Honkala, Green candidate for Sheriff of Philadelphia (http://www.cherihonkala.com) running on an anti-foreclosure platform, speaking at Freedom Plaza in Washington, DC on October 6: "What I'm doing is not symbolic. It's concrete and Bill and Aida and Glenn who's here with me today, like millions of people across this country are gonna lose their homes... unless you take this seriously and not just march about it, pray about it, and sing about it but help me fill every damn poll in Philadelphia where there's a birthplace of revolution and change... We can do this again in this country and take our country back!"
See also:
"Green Party of the US endorses, joins 'October 2011' protest against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and 2012 austerity budget"
Green Party media advisory, September 27, 2011
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=450
October 2011 http://october2011.org ? ? ?> > >for 'Help';
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