Zephyr Teachout

Teachout is also an actor who has performed in many plays at the Unadilla Theatre in Marshfield, Vermont, directed by Bill Blachly,[16][22] 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.[16] In 2013, Teachout was Lady Utterwood in George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House.[23] In 2019, she played Anne in Florian Zeller's 2012 play The Father.[24][25]

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.[4]

Teachout volunteered at Occupy Wall Street, where she encouraged the movement to focus on the importance of decentralized power, citing the ideas of James Madison, and worked to educate activists in corporate law and policy.[2][26][27]

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.[28][29]

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.[30] In October of that year she was appointed to the editorial board of The Nation.[31]

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.[32] 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.[33]

Teachout then announced that she would run for the Democratic nomination.[34] Her running mate was Tim Wu, a Columbia University Law School professor who coined the phrase "net neutrality".[35][36][37] 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.[2]

Their campaign raised $800,000, a small amount for New York state politics.[38] Four days before the primary, polls showed their likely voter share at 26%, in line with the predictions of political professionals.[39]

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%.

In March 2015, Teachout moved from Brooklyn to Dutchess County, New York.[40] Ten months later she announced her candidacy in New York's 19th congressional district's 2016 Democratic congressional primary.[41] 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,[42][43] Kirsten Gillibrand,[44] and Chuck Schumer,[45] New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the National Education Association,[46] New York State United Teachers,[47] National Nurses United,[48] the Communication Workers of America,[49] EMILY's List,[50] and the Sierra Club.[51] She lost to Republican John Faso in the November 8 general election by nine percentage points.[52]

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.[53][54] At the time Teachout was pregnant, expecting a child in October, one month after the primary and one month before the general election.[55] 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.[7]

On September 13, 2018, Teachout lost the Democratic primary for Attorney General to Letitia James, receiving 31% of the vote to James's 40.6%.[56]

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.[57] 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.[58] 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.

On January 24, 2022, the New York State attorney general's office appointed Teachout as a special advisor and senior counsel for economic justice.[10] In a tweet, she wrote that she would take a leave of absence from her position at Fordham Law School.

• Teachout, Zephyr; Streeter, Thomas, eds. (2007). Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope: Lessons from the Howard Dean Campaign for the Future of Internet Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. ISBN 9781594514845. OCLC 1100703254.
• Teachout, Zephyr (2014). Corruption in America: From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizens United. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 9780674050402. OCLC 900727926.
• Teachout, Zephyr (2020). Break 'Em Up: Recovering Our Freedom from Big Ag, Big Tech, and Big Money. New York: All Points Book/St. Martin's Publishing Group. ISBN 9781250200891. OCLC 1112261337.

• Teachout, Zephyr Rain (April 1999). "Defining and Punishing Abroad: Constitutional Limits on the Extraterritorial Reach of the Offenses Clause". Duke Law Journal. Duke University School of Law. 48 (6): 1305–1331. doi:10.2307/1373018. ISSN 0012-7086. JSTOR 1373018. OCLC 5544330962.
• Teachout, Zephyr (Autumn 2001). "Received Forms". Feminist Studies. Feminist Studies, Inc. 27 (3): 732. doi:10.2307/3178816. ISSN 0046-3663. JSTOR 3178816. OCLC 5547967358.
• Teachout, Zephyr (Winter 2004–2005). "CB's, Meetup, and Visible Volunteers: From the Dean Campaign to the Future of Internet Organizing". Social Policy. American Institute for Social Justice. 35 (2): 4. ISSN 0037-7783. OCLC 98468683.
• Teachout, Zephyr (Winter 2005–2006). "Organizing Connection: Lessons from the 'Net". Social Policy. American Institute for Social Justice. 36 (2): 24. ISSN 0037-7783. OCLC 102260391.
• Teachout, Zephyr (2009). "The Anti-Corruption Principle" (PDF). Cornell Law Review. 94 (2): 341–413. ISSN 0010-8847. OCLC 779230052.
• Teachout, Zephyr (2009). "Extraterritorial Electioneering and the Globalization of American Elections". Berkeley Journal of International Law. 27 (1): 162–191. ISSN 1085-5718. OCLC 8091528754. Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved November 2, 2019.
• Teachout, Zephyr (January 2011). "Facts in Exile: Corruption and Abstraction in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission". Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. 42 (2). doi:10.2139/ssrn.1946004. OCLC 7375038005. SSRN 1946004.
• Teachout, Zephyr (2011). "The Unenforceable Corrupt Contract: Corruption and 19th Century Contract Law". NYU Review of Law and Social Change. 35: 681–705. ISSN 0048-7481.
• Teachout, Zephyr (2011). "The Historical Roots of Citizens United v. FEC: How Anarchists and Academics Accidentally Created Corporate Speech Rights" (PDF). Harvard Law & Policy Review. 5 (1): 163–187.
• Teachout, Zephyr; Khan, Lina (2014). "Market Structure and Political Law: A Taxonomy of Power". Duke Journal of Constitutional Law & Public Policy. 9 (2): 37–74. ISSN 1937-9439. OCLC 904591607.
• Teachout, Zephyr; Tillman, Seth Barrett (2016). "The Foreign Emoluments Clause: Article I, Section 9, Clause 8" (Interactive online website). Interactive Constitution. National Constitution Center.