John Eder

John Eder (born January 18, 1969) is a Green Party Leader, social activist, and American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. Eder lives in Portland and is a member of the Maine Green Independent Party, the Maine affiliate of the national Green Party. He served in the Maine House of Representatives as the legislature's first member of the Green Party for two terms and was elected in 2002 and re-elected in 2004. Until his defeat in 2006 Eder was one of only a handful of independent or third party state legislators in the country and was the highest-ranking elected Green official in the United States. In February 2011, Eder announced his candidacy for the Mayor of Portland, Maine in the election in November later that year.

Biography

Raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, at the age of fifteen, Eder left the home of his abusive and alcoholic adoptive family. After moving between friends and relatives and finally being homeless, he became a ward of the court and entered the Hope House facility for troubled boys in Port Jefferson, New York. At age eighteen Eder entered college in Buffalo, New York to study philosophy. Disenchanted with college and suffering from post-traumatic stress and depression as a result of a difficult childhood, Eder dropped out. He spent the next several years studying philosophy on his own and working at the Greyhound bus station in Buffalo. Inspired by Buddhist teachers and the writings of...
Read More