John Eder

Upon making its endorsements in the mayor's race, the Portland Daily Sun said, "John Eder’s ideas surrounding affordable housing and public transportation (especially when it comes to replacing school buses with METRO passes) were apparently good enough to be incorporated by several opponents."

Eder served a term on the Portland Board of Education during which time he chaired the committee to oversee the transition plan to have Greater Portland METRO buses transport Portland Public Schools’ high school students to and from school. In addition, Eder advocated for the renovation of the districts elementary schools. Eder did not seek re-election.

In 2018, Eder unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives. He claimed that "Democratic values" moved him to join the party. Eder had previously broken from Green Party tradition and supported Democrats while maintaining his Green voter registration, including future Portland Mayor Ethan Strimling.

In January 2018, Eder announced his bid for the Democratic nomination for District 12 of the Maine House of Representatives. He was subsequently defeated in the June primary by Victoria Foley. In February 2020, the Bangor Daily News published a letter to the editor by Eder in which he advocated the repeal of a law which eliminated most exemptions from state child vaccination requirements, including religious exemptions.

Eder was a candidate for mayor in the 2011 Portland mayoral election. In the race Eder focused on providing living wages, affordable housing and health care for the city's working class residents. He was endorsed among the top three candidates for mayor by the League of Young Voters. Eder was also endorsed as the best choice for mayor by the Portland Phoenix on the issue of "social services." The Phoenix said of Eder, "as a campaigner who has championed the city's working poor — by advocating for living wage, affordable healthcare, and better housing options — Eder has shown that he is passionate about helping the city's neediest citizens".

Eder is further credited with changing Portland's political landscape by bringing young voters in Portland into the political process and paving the way for the Greens to assume their present role as the second party of contention in Portland, Maine's largest city. Several young activists who Eder mentored have since won political office in Portland. Former Eder campaign volunteers David A. Marshall and Kevin Donoghue took seats on the Portland City Council, becoming the first registered Greens to serve on that body. In 2010, his former Legislative Aide, Ben Chipman, won a seat in the Maine Legislature.

In November 2008 Eder was elected to the Cumberland County Charter Commission. Eder finished second out of five declared candidates running a write-in election for two seats. Eder travels the country speaking to regular citizens about to run and win local office as a way to demystify politics and feel empowered by taking personal responsibility for their own governance.

Eder lost the 2006 election to the Maine House by about 60 votes to Democrat Jon Hinck. Eder entered the campaign as a favorite, and many environmental, gay-rights, labor, and progressive organizations lined up behind him.

In September 2005 during the break between legislative sessions Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Two weeks later Eder deployed with the Red Cross to drive a food canteen truck and provide case management to victims of the storm.

Following redistricting passed in 2003, Eder won re-election in 2004.

John Eder (born January 18, 1969) is an American activist and politician from Maine. Eder, a Democrat, lives in Biddeford. He is a former 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. Eder ran for Mayor of Portland, Maine in 2011. In 2014, Eder won a race for an at-large seat on the Portland Board of Education.

Eder was the first member of a third-party to serve in the Maine Legislature since 1915 when representatives of Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party (United States) held legislative offices there. Eder remains the only state legislator in the country to serve a full term as a Green and to be re-elected as a Green.