Ianthe Metzger (she/her) knows how to communicate. She has spent most of her career as the official mouthpiece of three of the largest progressive advocacy organizations in the United States: Human Rights Campaign, Emily’s List, and Planned Parenthood. Originally from the country of Trinidad and Tobago, Ianthe did not originally envision this career trajectory - the daughter of two dentists, she thought she would follow in her parents’ footsteps. Read on to learn about the rapid ascent in progressive activism for Ianthe Metzger!
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Today we are profiling Amy Mathieu (she/her), a gender-nonconforming queer attorney who is running to be a judge on the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. After the election of Donald Trump in November, Amy was motivated to run for this elected judgeship. As the country slides into a fascist corporatocracy, Amy wants to to join the court to become an activist judge who will help lead the anti-fascist resistance and to uniformly and consistently protect citizens from patriarchal, white supremacist and capitalist interests. She hopes to protect the civil rights of marginalized communities from discriminatory executive orders. Using this position of power, Amy will promote DEI and trans rights while our current regime seeks to erase diversity, equity, and inclusion, and trans people from American society.
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Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her) is a lesbian Filipina-American with a long career of public service. An Air Force officer during the early days of the Iraq War, Gina would later rise through the ranks of government to become the Under Secretary of the Air Force (the USAF’s #2 civilian position) in 2021. Along the way, Gina ran for Texas’ 23rd district in the US House of Representatives in 2018, winning the Democratic Primary but losing in the general election by less than a thousand votes. In her race to be San Antonio’s next mayor, Gina is running on a platform of universal Pre-K, housing affordability, and increasing high-speed Internet access to people of all incomes. The San Antonio mayoral election is on May 3, 2025.
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Aaron Regunberg (he/him), while only in his mid-30s, has a long list of accomplishments to his name. A former two-term Rhode Island state representative, this kakapo fan is taking on the might of fossil fuel companies as legal counsel at Public Citizen, and is fighting the Trump administration in Rhode Island as co-founder of Resist Hate RI. Read on to learn more about Aaron and his legacy of activism!
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When most people think of Nashville, they think of country music, the Grand Ole Opry, and hot chicken. But hopefully in the near future, they will also think of Odessa Kelly. Odessa (she/her) is a working-class, openly gay Black woman and mom of 2 who devotes her time, energy, and resources to the social justice non-profit she founded and now leads, Stand Up Nashville! This former Division I women’s basketball player went into public service after graduation but soon discovered that even a full-time government job is no longer enough to make ends meet. This experience of living hand-to-mouth motivated Odessa to start her social justice work advocating for the working class, housing justice, and racial equity in her home city. Read on to learn more about the force of nature that is Odessa Kelly!
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Marie Newman (she/her), a lifelong progressive activist, is a former US Representative whose office in the Longworth House Office Building was located right across from right-wing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. After Greene insulted Newman’s transgender daughter, Newman flew the transgender pride flag outside of her own office. But advocating for transgender people is just one of many progressive positions Newman has agitated for over the course of her life. She has been a woman’s rights, gun reform, healthcare and income equity champion her entire life. Her prescriptive memoir, A Life Made From Scratch, is due to be released on March 18. Read on to learn more about the tremendous work of Marie Newman!
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Kara Eastman (she/her) is a woman of many passions, but aside from punk rock nearly all of them involve making lives better for people who unduly suffer under the effects of untamed late-stage capitalism, the for-profit health industry, the lack or disregard of environmental regulations, or media centralized in the hands of the ultra-wealthy. After a career of activism, she shows no signs of slowing down! Read on to learn more about the work of the indefatigable Kara Eastman!
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This is the final week we are highlighting progressive candidates running in the 2024 elections! Erica Mosca (she/her/hers) has the distinction of being the first Filipina to serve in the Nevada State Legislature. This millennial teacher and military spouse grew up in a low-income household and became the first in her family to go to college, graduating with highest honors from Boston University, and then pursuing postgraduate studies in education at UNLV and Harvard. To inspire others to follow in her footsteps, Erica founded a non-profit foundation to enable former students of hers to likewise become first-generation college graduates. Today, Mosca chairs the Asian American Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Caucus in the Nevada Assembly. She is passionate about empowering students to grow into leaders in their communities and upending structural inequity and systemic racism.
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This election season we have had the great opportunity to highlight so many candidates who are running at the local level! Today we are profiling one such candidate, Jessica Jackson (she/her/hers), a queer mental health therapist and mother of two who also raises chickens and ducks on her property. She has worked hard to prioritize education, going from a GED to a master’s degree in social work. Jessica writes all of her own stump speeches, and she is passionate about reproductive rights, gender affirming care for trans individuals, the environment, and rural communities.
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This week we are profiling our youngest candidate of the season, Nate Douglas (he/him). At 23 years of age, Nate is no stranger to politics, having won his first elected office at age 19 to be the supervisor of the Orange County Soil and Water Conservation District. This gay Gen-Z coder decided to enter politics to protect working-class families like his own from corporate greed, advocating for homeowners and renters against exploitative practices, championing bodily autonomy under a regressive state government, and fighting to protect the environment from the influence of big developers and fossil fuel industries. The top three issues he is most passionate about are climate change, economic justice, and healthcare.
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Chibuihe Asonye (she/her/hers) is a Gen Z Chicago native and University of Ilinois graduate (2018) who currently works as a resident advisor at the university. Chibu is running as a Green Party candidate in Illinois’ 13th Congressional District. Because she fell short of the required 12,000 signatures to appear on the ballot in the November election, Chibu is now running as a write-in candidate. A Nigerian-American and youngest of four, Chibu is passionate about election reform and the wellbeing of her community.
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Kerene Moore (she/her) is a queer social justice attorney with over 15 years of legal and public service experience. She is currently the Director of Conviction Integrity at the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office. She previously served as a juvenile referee and judicial attorney in the Washtenaw County Circuit Court, and as an administrative law examiner with the Michigan Department of Civil Rights. She started her career at Legal Services of South Central Michigan where she provided free representation to over 1,000 under resourced clients. In 2014, she also founded Outreach, a pro bono LGBTQ+ advocacy project with University of Michigan law students. Throughout her career, she has served on the committees and boards of several organizations including the Jim Toy Community Center, Equality Michigan, Women Lawyers Association of Michigan, and the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission. She has also served as co-chair of the LGBTQ+ Law Section of the Washtenaw County Bar Association and is the incoming chair of the State Bar of Michigan’s LGBTQ+ Law Section. Kerene is passionate about increasing access to justice to people from all walks of life, supporting treatment courts, ensuring that crime victims are receiving support, and actively reducing systemic bias in our courts.
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Ailina Carona (she/her) is a queer Latina millennial who is a makeup artist in the greater Nashville area. As the mother of a special needs daughter, she has been an advocate for more inclusive education policies and has raised money for school lunches. Ailina has also raised money for women’s shelters and advocates for reproductive freedom for women and stricter gun laws. Ailina lives with her husband and three daughters outside of Nashville.
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Sade Elhawary (she/her) is a millennial activist and high school history teacher. A graduate of UCLA and Harvard, Sade served as a prominent member of Karen Bass’s successful election campaign to be mayor of Los Angeles. At age 28, she traveled the world, visiting 28 countries - one for each year of her age. As a Black and Latina community activist, Sade is most passionate about unifying Black and Brown people to combat white supremacy, and fight for racial equity and economic justice. As a proud member of the LGBTQ community, she promotes the queer community's resilience and political struggle for liberation. Sade is promoting healthcare for all (including reproductive and mental health), providing educational and employment opportunities for young people, and criminal justice reform in her campaign.
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This week we are profiling Priya Sundareshan (she/her), a woman of many talents. With a BS in chemical engineering from MIT and a JD from University of Arizona law school, and a MS in natural resource economics from University of Arizona, this millennial attorney and mother-of-two teaches natural resource law at the University of Arizona, was a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund, and is a voting rights advocate, focusing on voter protection efforts and engagement on redistricting within the Arizona Democratic Party. Priya is currently the only South Asian member of the Arizona Legislature, and the first South Asian elected to the Arizona Senate. She is passionate about protecting Arizona water for long-term use, addressing climate change through state policies, and making voting as easy as possible.
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One thing that we at Jejune are pleased to see is the number of LGBTQ+ candidates who are running this year, and we have profiled quite a few of them! This week we are highlighting Dominique Johnson (she/they), who is the incumbent representative in District 143 in the Connecticut House of Representatives. Dominique is a genderqueer millennial who has gone from humble political beginnings as a community organizer to Assistant Majority Leader. A former professor and punk rock bassist, they are a published author with work appearing in works ranging from Teen Vogue to The Nation. Dominique is passionate advocate for educational equity, the health and well-being of youth, women and LGBTQ+ people, and sustainability.
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Katie Causey (she/her/hers) is a bisexual millennial community and tenant organizer and political activist who is a lifelong resident of Palo Alto, California currently running for city council. Among other issues in her platform, Katie believes in expanding housing access and protecting tenant rights, reducing carbon emissions, and promoting LGBTQ+ rights in Palo Alto. As someone who is passionate about expanding and promoting public transportation, and reducing car traffic, Katie herself does not own a car, and walks, bikes, and takes public transport to get where she needs to be. Katie also owns over 35 houseplants!
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As we count down the final weeks of this election season, we are ramping up our profiles of progressive candidates. This week we are profiling Farrah Chaichi (she/her/hers), a democratic socialist representative in Oregon running for reelection. This queer millennial of color and Iron Maiden superfan has a history of activism, fighting for causes such as labor rights, Black Lives Matter, and human rights. Farrah is passionate about delivering access to health care, addiction services, education, and clean water to her constituents in her hometown of Beaverton, which is a mix of working class and middle class neighborhoods.
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This week we are profiling our second party leader this season, Luz Escamilla (she/her), the current minority leader of the Democratic Party in the Utah State Senate. Luz was born in Mexico to two college professors, and immigrated when she was 18 years old. Only one of six Democrats in the Utah State Senate, Luz leads her small caucus in promoting issues such as healthcare access and cost, food security, air quality, transportation access, high quality childcare, and home visiting services.
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Angela Alsobrooks (she/her/hers) is the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race for Maryland. Currently the Executive of Prince George’s County, the second largest county in Maryland, Angela was featured as the keynote speaker of this year’s Democratic National Convention! A prosecutor by practice, Angela has a long history of political action. She is most passionate about protecting citizens’ freedom to have autonomy over our own bodies, to live without the threat of gun violence, and for all American families to have economic opportunity to build generational wealth.
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