“It doesn’t matter what I think about your issue, you need to have your voice amplified and you need to have it heard,” Nadia Milleron told a crowd gathered in a barn on her corn and hay farm in Sheffield last Wednesday.
Milleron knows this better than most. Since 2020, she has been fighting for increased oversight of the airline industry. Her efforts have brought her to the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Department of Transportation, and the halls of Congress. Now, as she announced to the crowd of 40 or so gathered last week, she’s trying to get her own seat as the representative of Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District.
The announcement makes Milleron the latest to challenge 34-year incumbent U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, following the footsteps of Springfield Attorney Tahirah Amatul-Wadud in 2018 and former Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse in 2020. The district is geographically the largest in the state, covering Berkshire and Hampden Counties as well as parts of Hampshire, Franklin, and Worcester Counties.
At Milleron’s farm, two tables were set up to collect signatures at the barn’s open entryway. Milleron will need 2,000 verified signatures by Aug. 2 to qualify for the Massachusetts ballot as an independent candidate. She greeted attendees at the barn’s entrance and invited them, with the assistance of videographer Robert Ball, to record a 30-second video of the most important issue “on their heart.”
In a speech to attendees Milleron said the campaign is about amplifying constituents’ voices, which she plans to do, in part, through her and Ball’s video project. She told the crowd, “if that’s the only thing that’s left from this campaign, then that will be tremendous.”
Milleron has been a resident of the district, where she has worked as a farmer and raised her children, for 25 years. She is a graduate of Smith College with a bachelor’s degree in government, and a graduate of the University of Iowa with a law degree. She has traveled to Washington, D.C. and Illinois to advocate for both the national Aircraft Certification Reform and Accountability Act passed by Congress in 2020 and the Illinois House Bill passed in 2023 that now allows punitive damages to be recovered for certain cases of wrongful death. She is also the niece of political and environmental activist Ralph Nader, who ran four independent campaigns for the U.S. presidency and has been a lifelong champion of consumer rights.
During her speech, Milleron remarked that the barn where she was hosting the event was the same place she held a memorial reception for her daughter Samya Stumo — an aspiring global health researcher — just five years ago in March 2019. (Disclosure: the author and Samya knew each other growing up).
“There were so many people parked in the field that they all got stuck in the mud… the funeral was March 26th, so mud season,” Milleron said. “We’re rising up from that point. We’re rising up in the same place where we celebrated our daughter’s life.”
Milleron was called to legislative activism in 2020 when Boeing decided to reinstate the use of its 787 MAX planes after being grounded following the crashes of two of the newly marketed aircrafts in 2018 and 2019. The 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 killed all 157 people on board, including Samya. Boeing continues to face accusations of engineering, design, regulatory, and manufacturing problems. Recently the company made international news for the mid-flight blowout of a door plug in January and the sudden death of a former employee testifying against the company’s production standards.
Speaking about her steps into the world of legislative activism, Milleron said she “didn’t want other people to die from the same reason that our daughter died.”
Milleron said the experience of becoming an advocate for consumer safety taught her a lot.
“It taught me that you just need your heart, you just need your common sense, and you just need to do the work,” she said.
“Most importantly,” she continued, “you need to choose an issue that is not divisive. Everyone agrees that we should have safe airplanes, everybody, and everybody agrees that if a corporation knowingly and maliciously goes against people that they should have an incentive [not to].”
When asked for an explanation of what issues constituted as divisive and how voters could expect Milleron to vote on those issues, she told The Shoestring she believes all human beings should have equal rights.
“In terms of abortion, I don’t think the government should have anything to do with it,” she said. “Those are generally my ethical parameters, and then I would just have to approach each vote as it comes up.”
She added that she would focus on making change “where it’s most possible,” on issues like medical care, food pricing, affordable housing, and U.S. based manufacturing and pharmaceutical production.
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Milleron did not mince words when it came to her tenured competition, Richard Neal.
“People are sick of 34 years in office and voting for no transparency in pharmaceutical pricing and issues that are directly against the interests of the constituents,” she said.
As a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee, Neal is one of the most powerful Democrats in Congress. In recent years, his challengers have attacked him from the left, pointing to his refusal to take a stand on climate issues, his accepting of more corporate PAC money than nearly any other member of Congress, and his blocking of legislation that prevents surprise medical billing.
During her speech to attendees, Milleron also said Neal’s past involvement in trade agreements had caused the losses of thousands of domestic manufacturing jobs in the region. Additionally she suggested Neal had not been taking advantage of his federal position to conduct investigations of public and private mail carriers as it related to black market fentanyl distribution.
When asked for comment on Milleron’s statements and the emerging race for the first district seat, Neal responded via email with a prepared statement.
“Working with President Biden, we’ve made historic progress by delivering generational investments in our infrastructure, passing the largest legislation ever to tackle climate change, addressing racial injustice, and creating tens of thousands of good-paying jobs,” the statement read. “And there’s so much more good work we can do if we take back the House and reelect President Biden. That’s why I’m running for reelection and am committed to electing Democrats up and down the ticket across the country.”
During her campaign speech Milleron remarked on the “power” independent candidates could wield in a “close House” not controlled by a strong party majority.
Attendees said they supported independent candidates because they perceived them as well rounded, more willing to enact change, and flexible on issues that divide party lines.
Catherine Miller, a Sheffield voter, said she, like 63% of Massachusetts voters, liked to remain unenrolled with a political party so she could make her own choice on candidates. When asked how she heard of Milleron’s independent campaign run, she said she had known Milleron for a long time and heard about the campaign via word-of-mouth. She added that she felt Milleron was “incredibly bright, highly motivated, does what she says she will do, and really gets things done.”
Great Barrington voter Robin Chadwell told The Shoestring that she supported Milleron’s independent campaign specifically because it was aimed at putting pressure on Neal, who Chadwell said was “bought and sold by corporate interests.” Chadwell also said she supported the campaign because she perceived Milleron as having a record of being well rounded politically on both domestic and foreign issues and because of where and how they had heard about the campaign — through political organizers with the group “anti-imperialist solidarity.”
During initial press inquiries with the Milleron campaign, John Krol, who recently ran an unsuccessful bid for Pittsfield mayor, responded to The Shoestring. His campaign was blemished by allegations of embezzlement from a non-profit of which he was a former president.
When questioned on Krol’s level of involvement in the campaign, Milleron said Krol “has a small advertising agency that we have hired to do things like help make the website, make all the press releases, contact the press, because I’m just beginning the campaign I have no staff.” She said at this point he’s part of the central campaign management support while she seeks to hire a campaign manager.
Milleron said her campaign will focus on the return of domestic manufacturing and food production, addressing a shortage of medical providers and affordable housing, tackling disparities in access to healthcare, fixing projected social security shortfalls, the rising food prices, and continuing to build on the past environmental work of Ralph Nader. Milleron said she also wants to address disparities between market values for farmed goods and revenue received by farmers.
“I am able and willing to help you all regain control over your taxes and your destiny,” Milleron said in her closing remarks, adding that she is “not taking any corporate donation ever.”
“We’re going to win this campaign by being organized,” Milleron concluded. “People vote when you talk to them. That’s the only reason people cast a vote.”
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Tommy Lee is a writer, investigative journalist, and audio video producer for community television based in Western Massachusetts.
