Women of Influence: Jill Stein
Jill Stein may have never held elected office above the local level, but she has influenced those concerned about the environment into taking action, both politically and as protesters. She has twice run for President of the United States and has been a major influence in the Green Party movement in the United States.
Dr. Jill Stein was the nominee of the Green Party for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections. She was also the party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Stein was raised in Highland Park, Illinois. She was raised in a Reform Jewish household, and attended Chicago's North Shore Congregation Israel. In 1973, Dr. Stein graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where she studied psychology, sociology, and anthropology. She then attended Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1979. Dr. Stein practiced internal medicine for 25 years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Simmons College Health Center, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, all in the greater Boston area. She also served as an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Her first major foray into politics took place in 1998, when she began protesting a group of coal plants in her state known as the "Filthy Five". That same year she began serving on the board of the Greater Boston chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Dr. Stein has won a number of awards for her environmental activism including Clean Water Action's "Not in Anyone's Backyard Award" in 1998 and its "Children's Health Hero Award" in 2000, Toxic Action Center's "Citizen Award" in 1999, and Salem State College's "Friend of the Earth Award" in 2004. She also was co-author of two reports by the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development (2000), and Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging (2009).
Dr. Stein was once a member of the Democratic Party, but left the party over the issue of campaign finance reform, a cause she supports. She first ran for Governor of her state in 2002 as the Green-Rainbow Party candidate. Her running mate was Tony Lorenzen, a high school theology teacher. The ticket finished third in a field of five candidates, with 76,530 votes (3.5%), in a race won by Republican Mitt Romney.
Stein next sought political office in 2004, running for state representative for the 9th Middlesex District. She received 3,911 votes (21.3%) in a three-way race, finishing second behind Democratic incumbent Thomas M. Stanley. In 2005, Stein she ran for the Lexington Town Meeting, the local legislative body in Lexington, Massachusetts. She was elected to one of seven seats in Precinct 2 (Lexington, Massachusetts) and finished first of 16 candidates, receiving 539 votes (20.6%). Stein was reelected in 2008, finishing second of 13 vying for eight seats. Stein resigned during her second term to again run for governor in 2010. On February 8, 2010, Stein announced her second candidacy for governor. Her running mate was Richard P. Purcell, a surgery clerk and ergonomics assessor. In the general election, Stein finished fourth, receiving 32,895 votes (1.4%), losing to incumbent, Democrat Deval Patrick.
In August 2011, Stein announced that she was considering running for President of the United States as the candidate for the Green Party in the 2012 national election. She was critical of President Barack Obama and called the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis "the President's astounding attack on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid-a betrayal of the public interest." Stein launched her campaign in October 2011. Her major opponents for the nomination were Kent P. Mesplay and actress/comedian Roseanne Barr. In the campaign Stein called for a "Green New Deal", a government spending plan that promised to put 25 million people to work. Stein was endorsed for president in 2012 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and war correspondent Chris Hedges.
On July 1, 2012, the Stein campaign reported it had received enough contributions to qualify for primary season federal matching funds, pending confirmation from the FEC, making her the second Green Party presidential candidate ever to have qualified for such funding (Ralph Nader was the first in 2000). On July 11, Stein selected Cheri Honkala, an anti-poverty activist, as her running mate for the Green vice-presidential nomination. On July 14, she officially received the Green Party's nomination at its convention in Baltimore.
On August 1, Stein, Honkala and three others were arrested during a sit-in at a Philadelphia bank. The protest was held to draw attention to housing foreclosures on behalf of several city residents struggling to keep their homes. Later that year, on October 16, Stein and Honkala were arrested once again. after they tried to enter the site of the presidential debate at Hofstra University while protesting the exclusion of smaller political parties, such as the Green Party, from the debates. On October 31, Stein was arrested a third time, this time in Texas, for criminal trespass. She was trying to deliver food and supplies to environmental activists of Tar Sands Blockade camped out in trees protesting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Although not permitted to participate in any of the major debates, Stein did participate in a debate sponsored by the Free and Equal Election Foundation. The debate was held between four candidates for parties other that the two major political parties. It was held on October 19, Stein also participated in another debate between herself and Gary Johnson, held on November 5. In her campaign she was critical of both of the two leading candidates, stating, "Romney is a wolf in a wolf's clothing, Obama is a wolf in a sheep's clothing, but they both essentially have the same agenda." She called both of them "Wall Street candidates" and accused each of them of seeking "a mandate for four more years of corporate rule".
In the 2012 Presidential election, Stein finished fourth behind Obama, Romney and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. She received 469,015 votes (0.36%). She only received 1% or more of the vote in three states: Maine (1.1%), Oregon (1.1%), and Alaska (1.0%).
Stein made a second run for the White House in 2016. On February 6, 2015, Stein announced the formation of an exploratory committee in preparation for a potential campaign for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2016, and on June 22, she formally announced her candidacy in a live interview on Democracy Now! Stein chose human rights activist Ajamu Baraka as her running mate on August 1, 2016.
During the campaign Stein continued her attack on the two major parties, calling the Democratic and Republican parties "two corporate parties" that have converged into one. She criticized Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton, stating that "Putting another Clinton in the White House will fan the flames of this right-wing extremism. We have known that for a long time, ever since Nazi Germany."
Stein was criticized following the filing of her financial disclosure in March 2016, when it disclosed that she held investments of around $8.5 million that included holdings in industries that she had publicly criticized, such as energy, financial, pharmaceutical, tobacco, and defense contractors. She described the criticism as a "smear attack" against her.
On September 7, 2016, a North Dakota judge issued a warrant for Stein's arrest for spray-painting a bulldozer during a protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Stein was charged in Morton County with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief. Her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, was charged for the same offences. In August 2017, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and was placed on probation for six months.
Somewhat surprisingly, Stein was more critical of Hillary Clinton than she was of Donald Trump. She said in an interview with Politico that: "Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won't. Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his." However she was also critical of Trump, and said in the same interview "At least with Clinton, you know, there was some degree of transparency, but what's going on with Trump, you can't even get at, and what he said was that even to clarify 15 out of these 500 deals, these are just like the most frightening mafiosos around the world. He's like-he's a magnet for crime and extortion."
Stein's highest polling numbers occurred in late June 2016, when she polled at 4.8% nationally. But her polling numbers gradually slipped throughout the campaign, and on the eve of Election Day, Stein was at 1.8% in a polling average. Stein ultimately received 1% of the national popular vote in the election. She finished in 4th with over 1,457,216 votes (more than the previous three Green tickets combined) and 1.07% of the popular vote.
In November 2016, a group of computer scientists and election lawyers including J. Alex Halderman and John Bonifaz wanted a full audit or recount of the presidential election votes in three states key to Donald Trump's victory: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. They needed a candidate on the presidential ballot to file the petition to state authorities. Hillary Clinton refused to do so, but she agreed to spearhead the recount effort. Funded by a crowdfunding campaign on November 25, 2016, Stein filed for a recount of its presidential election results. President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement stating that the recount "is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded." On December 2, 2016, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a lawsuit to stop Stein's recount. On the same day in Wisconsin a U.S. District Judge denied an emergency halt to the recount, allowing it to continue until a December 9, 2016 hearing. On December 3, 2016, Stein dropped the state recount case in Pennsylvania. She said, "the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem that we must seek federal court intervention." Shortly after midnight on December 5, 2016, U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith ordered Michigan election officials to hand-recount 4.8 million ballots, rejecting all concerns for the cost of the recount. However, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that Stein, who placed fourth, had no chance of winning and was not an "aggrieved candidate" and ordered the Michigan election board to reject her petition for a recount. On December 7, 2016, Judge Goldsmith halted the Michigan recount. Stein filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, losing her appeal in a 3-2 decision on December 9, 2016.
On December 12, 2016, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond rejected Stein's request for a Pennsylvania recount.
On December 18, 2017, The Washington Post reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking at the presidential campaign of Green Party's Jill Stein for potential "collusion with the Russians." The Stein campaign has released a public statement agreeing to cooperate with investigators. In December 2018, two reports commissioned by the US Senate found that the Internet Research Agency boosted Stein's candidacy through social media posts, targeting African-American voters in particular. There was no evidence found to suggest that Stein knew about the operation.
Stein did not run for President in the 2020 Presidential Election. The Green Party nominee was New York trade unionist Howie Hawkins, one of the Green Party's co-founders.
Dr. Jill Stein was the nominee of the Green Party for President of the United States in the 2012 and 2016 elections. She was also the party's candidate for governor of Massachusetts in 2002 and 2010. Born in Chicago, Illinois, Dr. Stein was raised in Highland Park, Illinois. She was raised in a Reform Jewish household, and attended Chicago's North Shore Congregation Israel. In 1973, Dr. Stein graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, where she studied psychology, sociology, and anthropology. She then attended Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1979. Dr. Stein practiced internal medicine for 25 years at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Simmons College Health Center, and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, all in the greater Boston area. She also served as an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Her first major foray into politics took place in 1998, when she began protesting a group of coal plants in her state known as the "Filthy Five". That same year she began serving on the board of the Greater Boston chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Dr. Stein has won a number of awards for her environmental activism including Clean Water Action's "Not in Anyone's Backyard Award" in 1998 and its "Children's Health Hero Award" in 2000, Toxic Action Center's "Citizen Award" in 1999, and Salem State College's "Friend of the Earth Award" in 2004. She also was co-author of two reports by the Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, In Harm's Way: Toxic Threats to Child Development (2000), and Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging (2009).
Dr. Stein was once a member of the Democratic Party, but left the party over the issue of campaign finance reform, a cause she supports. She first ran for Governor of her state in 2002 as the Green-Rainbow Party candidate. Her running mate was Tony Lorenzen, a high school theology teacher. The ticket finished third in a field of five candidates, with 76,530 votes (3.5%), in a race won by Republican Mitt Romney.
Stein next sought political office in 2004, running for state representative for the 9th Middlesex District. She received 3,911 votes (21.3%) in a three-way race, finishing second behind Democratic incumbent Thomas M. Stanley. In 2005, Stein she ran for the Lexington Town Meeting, the local legislative body in Lexington, Massachusetts. She was elected to one of seven seats in Precinct 2 (Lexington, Massachusetts) and finished first of 16 candidates, receiving 539 votes (20.6%). Stein was reelected in 2008, finishing second of 13 vying for eight seats. Stein resigned during her second term to again run for governor in 2010. On February 8, 2010, Stein announced her second candidacy for governor. Her running mate was Richard P. Purcell, a surgery clerk and ergonomics assessor. In the general election, Stein finished fourth, receiving 32,895 votes (1.4%), losing to incumbent, Democrat Deval Patrick.
In August 2011, Stein announced that she was considering running for President of the United States as the candidate for the Green Party in the 2012 national election. She was critical of President Barack Obama and called the U.S. debt-ceiling crisis "the President's astounding attack on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid-a betrayal of the public interest." Stein launched her campaign in October 2011. Her major opponents for the nomination were Kent P. Mesplay and actress/comedian Roseanne Barr. In the campaign Stein called for a "Green New Deal", a government spending plan that promised to put 25 million people to work. Stein was endorsed for president in 2012 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and war correspondent Chris Hedges.
On July 1, 2012, the Stein campaign reported it had received enough contributions to qualify for primary season federal matching funds, pending confirmation from the FEC, making her the second Green Party presidential candidate ever to have qualified for such funding (Ralph Nader was the first in 2000). On July 11, Stein selected Cheri Honkala, an anti-poverty activist, as her running mate for the Green vice-presidential nomination. On July 14, she officially received the Green Party's nomination at its convention in Baltimore.
On August 1, Stein, Honkala and three others were arrested during a sit-in at a Philadelphia bank. The protest was held to draw attention to housing foreclosures on behalf of several city residents struggling to keep their homes. Later that year, on October 16, Stein and Honkala were arrested once again. after they tried to enter the site of the presidential debate at Hofstra University while protesting the exclusion of smaller political parties, such as the Green Party, from the debates. On October 31, Stein was arrested a third time, this time in Texas, for criminal trespass. She was trying to deliver food and supplies to environmental activists of Tar Sands Blockade camped out in trees protesting the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.
Although not permitted to participate in any of the major debates, Stein did participate in a debate sponsored by the Free and Equal Election Foundation. The debate was held between four candidates for parties other that the two major political parties. It was held on October 19, Stein also participated in another debate between herself and Gary Johnson, held on November 5. In her campaign she was critical of both of the two leading candidates, stating, "Romney is a wolf in a wolf's clothing, Obama is a wolf in a sheep's clothing, but they both essentially have the same agenda." She called both of them "Wall Street candidates" and accused each of them of seeking "a mandate for four more years of corporate rule".
In the 2012 Presidential election, Stein finished fourth behind Obama, Romney and Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. She received 469,015 votes (0.36%). She only received 1% or more of the vote in three states: Maine (1.1%), Oregon (1.1%), and Alaska (1.0%).
Stein made a second run for the White House in 2016. On February 6, 2015, Stein announced the formation of an exploratory committee in preparation for a potential campaign for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2016, and on June 22, she formally announced her candidacy in a live interview on Democracy Now! Stein chose human rights activist Ajamu Baraka as her running mate on August 1, 2016.
During the campaign Stein continued her attack on the two major parties, calling the Democratic and Republican parties "two corporate parties" that have converged into one. She criticized Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton, stating that "Putting another Clinton in the White House will fan the flames of this right-wing extremism. We have known that for a long time, ever since Nazi Germany."
Stein was criticized following the filing of her financial disclosure in March 2016, when it disclosed that she held investments of around $8.5 million that included holdings in industries that she had publicly criticized, such as energy, financial, pharmaceutical, tobacco, and defense contractors. She described the criticism as a "smear attack" against her.
On September 7, 2016, a North Dakota judge issued a warrant for Stein's arrest for spray-painting a bulldozer during a protest of the Dakota Access Pipeline. Stein was charged in Morton County with misdemeanor counts of criminal trespass and criminal mischief. Her running mate, Ajamu Baraka, was charged for the same offences. In August 2017, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and was placed on probation for six months.
Somewhat surprisingly, Stein was more critical of Hillary Clinton than she was of Donald Trump. She said in an interview with Politico that: "Donald Trump, I think, will have a lot of trouble moving things through Congress. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, won't. Hillary has the potential to do a whole lot more damage, get us into more wars, faster to pass her fracking disastrous climate program, much more easily than Donald Trump could do his." However she was also critical of Trump, and said in the same interview "At least with Clinton, you know, there was some degree of transparency, but what's going on with Trump, you can't even get at, and what he said was that even to clarify 15 out of these 500 deals, these are just like the most frightening mafiosos around the world. He's like-he's a magnet for crime and extortion."
Stein's highest polling numbers occurred in late June 2016, when she polled at 4.8% nationally. But her polling numbers gradually slipped throughout the campaign, and on the eve of Election Day, Stein was at 1.8% in a polling average. Stein ultimately received 1% of the national popular vote in the election. She finished in 4th with over 1,457,216 votes (more than the previous three Green tickets combined) and 1.07% of the popular vote.
In November 2016, a group of computer scientists and election lawyers including J. Alex Halderman and John Bonifaz wanted a full audit or recount of the presidential election votes in three states key to Donald Trump's victory: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. They needed a candidate on the presidential ballot to file the petition to state authorities. Hillary Clinton refused to do so, but she agreed to spearhead the recount effort. Funded by a crowdfunding campaign on November 25, 2016, Stein filed for a recount of its presidential election results. President-elect Donald Trump issued a statement stating that the recount "is a scam by the Green Party for an election that has already been conceded." On December 2, 2016, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette filed a lawsuit to stop Stein's recount. On the same day in Wisconsin a U.S. District Judge denied an emergency halt to the recount, allowing it to continue until a December 9, 2016 hearing. On December 3, 2016, Stein dropped the state recount case in Pennsylvania. She said, "the state court system is so ill-equipped to address this problem that we must seek federal court intervention." Shortly after midnight on December 5, 2016, U.S. District Judge Mark A. Goldsmith ordered Michigan election officials to hand-recount 4.8 million ballots, rejecting all concerns for the cost of the recount. However, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that Stein, who placed fourth, had no chance of winning and was not an "aggrieved candidate" and ordered the Michigan election board to reject her petition for a recount. On December 7, 2016, Judge Goldsmith halted the Michigan recount. Stein filed an appeal with the Michigan Supreme Court, losing her appeal in a 3-2 decision on December 9, 2016.
On December 12, 2016, U.S. District Judge Paul S. Diamond rejected Stein's request for a Pennsylvania recount.
On December 18, 2017, The Washington Post reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee was looking at the presidential campaign of Green Party's Jill Stein for potential "collusion with the Russians." The Stein campaign has released a public statement agreeing to cooperate with investigators. In December 2018, two reports commissioned by the US Senate found that the Internet Research Agency boosted Stein's candidacy through social media posts, targeting African-American voters in particular. There was no evidence found to suggest that Stein knew about the operation.
Stein did not run for President in the 2020 Presidential Election. The Green Party nominee was New York trade unionist Howie Hawkins, one of the Green Party's co-founders.