John Eder

Legislator John Eder, (born January 18, 1969) of Portland, Maine, is a member of the Maine Green Independent Party, elected to the Maine state house in 2002 and re-elected in 2004. He is the highest-ranking elected Green official in the United States.

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Eder is one of only a handful of independent or minor party state legislators in the country, and the only state legislator of the Green Party of the United States.

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Raised in Brooklyn, New York, Eder left an abusive and alchoholic homelife at 15 after disputes with his parents, and landed in a facility for troubled boys in Port Jefferson, New York. At 18 Eder entered college in Buffalo, New York to study philosophy. He soon grew restless and dropped out of college. Inspired by buddist teachers and the writings of Jack Kerouac, Eder spent several years traveling the country, hitchhiking, riding freight trains, and doing migrant farm work. He went from place to place volunteering and engaging in direct action around various social justice issues. He spent this period squatting amongst a network of travelers from Philadelphia to Mexico. While living in Austin, Texas he did a short stint as a Hare Krishna. A girlfriend from this period of Eder's life recounts her relationship with Eder in an episode of This American Life entitled Cringe Love. "I love connecting with all kinds of people and hearing their stories", Eder said. "In my travels I learned that American people, especially the poorest ones, would give you the shirt off their backs and that they valued family and realtionships above all. It all made me very hopeful for this country."

January: January is the first month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days....

1969: 1969 was a common year starting on Wednesday...

Portland, Maine: Portland is the largest city in Maine with a population of 64,249 citizens as of 2000, although a recent 2004 census shows that the population has dropped to 63,882. It is the county seat of Cumberland County. Nearby cities include Boston, Massachusetts, Portsmouth, New Hampshire and Manchester, N...

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