Zephyr Teachout

Zephyr Rain Teachout (, born October 24, 1971) is an American attorney, author, political candidate, and professor specializing in law of democracy and antitrust law at Fordham University.

In 2014, Teachout ran for the Democratic Party nomination for governor of New York and lost to incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo, receiving 33% of the primary vote. Teachout won the Democratic primary before losing to Republican John Faso. In 2018, Teachout was a candidate for New York State attorney general in the 2018 elections but lost the Democratic nomination to Letitia James. Her candidacy was endorsed by The New York Times.

On November 15, 2021, Teachout again announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for New York State attorney general, but suspended her campaign after the incumbent, James, who had been running for governor, instead ran for reelection. Teachout endorsed James when she announced the suspension of her campaign.

On January 24, 2022, the New York State attorney general's office appointed Teachout as a special advisor and senior counsel for economic justice.

Early life and education Teachout was born in Seattle, Washington, the second of five children to Peter Teachout and Mary Miles Teachout. Peter, who served in the United States Army as a lieutenant during the Vietnam War and graduated from Harvard Law School, was a professor at the University of Washington at the time. The family relocated to Vermont, where Peter became a constitutional law professor at Vermont Law School, and Mary has served as a trial judge and founded the Vermont Law Review.

Raised on a farm outside Norwich, Vermont, Teachout attended Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she was a champion cross-country runner

In 1993, Teachout received a B.A. degree from Yale University. In 1999, she earned two simultaneous degrees from Duke University: a Juris Doctor, summa cum laude, and a Master of Arts degree in political science. She was also editor-in-chief of the Duke Law Journal. She served as the director of Internet organizing for the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign. In 2009 she helped found the Antitrust League.

She has been a professor at Fordham Law School since 2009. She was a visiting professor of law at Duke University in 2007 and a lecturer at the University of Vermont. appearing as Katherine in Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost in 1994 and as Imogen in Shakespeare's Cymbeline in 1995. She played Winnie in Samuel Beckett's Happy Days in 2012 and 2019. In 2019, she played Anne in Florian Zeller's 2012 play The Father.

Public affairs In August 2015, Teachout became CEO and board chair of the campaign finance reform–oriented organization Mayday PAC, replacing Lawrence Lessig. She stepped down from this position in December 2015 to run for the U.S. House of Representatives in New York's 19th congressional district.

In January 2017, Teachout joined the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's lawsuit against President Trump, alleging violations of the Constitution's emoluments clause.

As of May 2018, she served on the board of advisors of Let America Vote, an organization founded by former Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander that aims to end voter suppression. In October of that year she was appointed to the editorial board of The Nation.

2014 New York gubernatorial campaign Teachout shaking hands with National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981) president Larry Goldbetter at the "We Will Not Go Back" march and rally held on August 23, 2014.

Teachout faced off against incumbent Andrew Cuomo and comedian Randy Credico in the Democratic primary election on September 9, 2014. In July 2014, the Board of Elections received objections from Harris Weiss and Austin Sternlicht challenging Teachout's New York residency. She first ran for the Working Families Party nomination, but lost to Cuomo. His margin of victory was much smaller than expected, especially since the Working Families Party traditionally cross-endorses the Democratic Party candidate.

Teachout then announced that she would run for the Democratic nomination. Her running mate was Tim Wu, a Columbia University Law School professor who coined the phrase "net neutrality". Their platform called for a rollback of Cuomo's tax cuts for the wealthy, investment in transportation and broadband infrastructure, a statewide fracking ban, an end to high-stakes testing and fair funding for schools in both under-resourced and affluent school districts, restoring voting rights to convicted felons, and support for the NY DREAM Act and anti-corruption measures, including public financing of elections to reduce the power of corporate donors and affluent political insiders. Four days before the primary, polls showed their likely voter share at 26%, in line with the predictions of political professionals.

Teachout and Wu lost to Cuomo and his running mate, former U.S. Representative Kathy Hochul, in the primary on September 9, 2014. Although Teachout was only expected to receive 26% of the vote (based on polling days before the election), she received 33%.

2016 U.S. House campaign In March 2015, Teachout moved from Brooklyn to Dutchess County, New York. Ten months later she announced her candidacy in New York's 19th congressional district's 2016 Democratic congressional primary. She ran to replace Republican Chris Gibson, who was retiring. In the June 28 primary Teachout won the nomination. She was endorsed by U.S. Senators Bernie Sanders, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Chuck Schumer, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the National Education Association, New York State United Teachers, National Nurses United, the Communication Workers of America, EMILY's List, and the Sierra Club. She lost to Republican John Faso in the November 8 general election by nine percentage points.

2018 Attorney General campaign Teachout served as treasurer for Cynthia Nixon's campaign for governor of New York until May 2018, when she announced she was running for attorney general of New York in the 2018 election. At the time Teachout was pregnant, expecting a child in October, one month after the primary and one month before the general election. On August 19, 2018, The New York Times endorsed Teachout for state attorney general. Its editorial board members argued that she would be the ideal candidate to hold both President Trump as well as the state government to account.

2022 Attorney General campaign On October 29, 2021, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced her candidacy for governor in 2022. Teachout had previously announced that if James ran for governor, she would run again for attorney general in the Democratic primary. On November 15, Teachout announced her candidacy on her Twitter account and at a press conference in Downtown Brooklyn. Her campaign was supported by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Harvard Law School Professor Lawrence Lessig. James ended her campaign for governor, and decided to run for reelection for New York Attorney General; on December 12 Teachout suspended her campaign for attorney general and endorsed James.

Senior counsel for economic justice On January 24, 2022, the New York State attorney general's office appointed Teachout as a special advisor and senior counsel for economic justice. He subsequently endorsed her for attorney general of New York in 2018, and Teachout endorsed him in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. In a January 2020 opinion column in The Guardian, Teachout wrote that Sanders's Democratic presidential rival Joe Biden had "a big corruption problem" arising from his relationships with donors over the course of his Senate career. Sanders apologized to Biden for the article, saying: "It is absolutely not my view that Joe is corrupt in any way."

Teachout's platform for her House campaign included a higher minimum wage, increased spending on public infrastructure, a ban on fracking, an increase in manufacturing jobs, property tax cuts, increased investment in rural infrastructure, and campaign finance reform (specifically working to overturn Citizens United v. FEC).

While running for Attorney General of New York, Teachout pledged that she would use the power of the office to sue Trump for violating anti-corruption laws and to force him to divest from his businesses.

Electoral history

Personal life and family Teachout is married to Nicholas S. Juliusburger, a software company executive. They live in East Harlem, Manhattan.

In October 2018, Teachout and Juliusburger were expecting their first child. Teachout used footage of her receiving an ultrasound in a campaign advertisement.

In 2020, Teachout enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at Union Theological Seminary. For her field education, she served at Saint Luke's Lutheran Church.

Selected works and publications Books

Selected articles