Steering Committee

The current Steering Committee is self-appointed, and we commit to holding an election for a democratic Steering Committee as soon as we reach 100 dues paying members.

David Cobb
a “people’s lawyer” who has sued corporate polluters, lobbied elected officials, run for political office himself, and been arrested for non-violent civil disobedience. He helped co-found the Green Party of Texas, and managed the Nader 2000 campaign in that state. In 2002, he ran for Attorney General of Texas, pledging to use the office to revoke the charters of corporations violating health, safety and environmental laws. In 2004, he was the Green Party nominee for President, forcing a recount in Ohio that helped launch the Election Integrity movement. In 2010, he co-founded Move To Amend, a campaign for a constitutional amendment to abolish “corporate personhood” and, in 2016, he served as the campaign manager for the Stein/Baraka presidential campaign. He currently works at Cooperation Humboldt, and serves on the Board of Directors of the US Solidarity Economy Network and the Collaborative Design Council of Transition US.

Meleiza Figueroa
PhD Candidate in Geography at UC Berkeley, and spent two years in the Amazon researching indigenous agroforestry and its lessons for sustainable development. She was the National Press Director for the Stein/Baraka Green Party Presidential campaign in 2016. She is a faculty-owner of the Cooperative New School for Urban Studies and Environmental Justice, and a Fellow with the Liberty Tree Foundation for the Democratic Revolution. She currently works as National Coordinator for the Cancel Student Debt Campaign, and on Native-led ecosystem restoration/management and environmental workforce development with the Chico Traditional Ecological Stewardship program and the Intertribal Stewardship Workforce Initiative in Northern California. She has been a longtime political journalist, educator and organizer involved in a wide range of movements for social & environmental justice. She is an on-air correspondent for Free Speech TV’s “Rising Up With Sonali,” and has written for The Nation, Truthdig.com, Against the Current, Truthout, and New Politics. 

Margaret Kimberley
Editor and Senior Columnist at Black Agenda Report and a New York state Green Party member. She is the author of Prejudential: Black America and the Presidents and a contributor to the anthology In Defense of Julian Assange. Ms. Kimberley serves on the Administrative Committee of the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) and the Coordinating Committee of Black Alliance for Peace (BAP). She is a recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

Gloria Matera
serves as co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and co-chair of the Green Party of New York. She has been an organizer in socialist and left independent politics in the Green Party, System Change Not Climate Change and Left Elect. Gloria directs a child life program at a public hospital that serves a largely low income, immigrant population.  She is a long-time board member of Physicians For a National Health Program and active in the single-payer movement.

Michael O’Neil
works in communications and strategy for the Green Party of the United States and the Green Party of New York. He has previously contributed to the National Coalition Against Censorship and the radical performance community Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping. He assisted the WGA-EAST with online communications during the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America Strike.
Michael has served as staff on eco-socialist electoral campaigns in New York and in 2016 was hired as the Assistant to the Campaign Manager of the Jill Stein/Ajamu Baraka campaign, co-managing the campaign’s Brooklyn, NY office and producing events and livestreams. He resides in Syracuse, NY.

Peter Schwartzman
Professor of Environmental Studies at Knox College (where he has been teaching since 1998). Peter has served as Alderperson on the Galesburg (Illinois) City Council since 2011. He has a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences (Univ. of Virginia), M.S. in Science & Technology Studies (Virginia Tech), and B.S. in Physics (Harvey Mudd). Peter recently co-authored the book, The Earth is Not for Sale: A Path Out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World That is Still Possible (2018, World Scientific, Link).