Zephyr Rain Teachout (, born October 24, 1971) is an American attorney, author, political candidate, and associate professor of law at Fordham University.
In 2014, Teachout ran for the Democratic Party nomination for governor of New York and lost to incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo, receiving 34% of the primary vote. In 2016, Teachout was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives in New York's 19th congressional district. Teachout won the Democratic primary before losing to Republican John Faso. In 2018, Teachout was a candidate for New York State attorney general in the 2018 elections but lost the Democratic nomination to Letitia James. Her candidacy was endorsed by The New York Times.
On November 15, 2021, Teachout again announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for New York State attorney general, but suspended her campaign after the incumbent, James, who had been running for governor, instead ran for reelection. Teachout endorsed James when she announced the suspension of her campaign.
On January 24, 2022, the New York State attorney general's office appointed Teachout as a special advisor and senior counsel for economic justice.
Early life and education
Teachout was born in Seattle, Washington, the second of five children, to Peter Teachout and Mary Miles Teachout. Peter, who served in the United States Army as a lieutenant during the Vietnam War and has a law degree from Harvard Law School, was a professor at the University of Washington at the time. The family relocated to Vermont, where Peter became a constitutional law professor at Vermont Law School, and Mary has served as a trial judge and founded the Vermont Law Review.
Raised on a farm outside Norwich, Vermont, Teachout attended Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she was a champion cross-country runner and did some acting.
In 1993, Teachout received a B.A. degree from Yale University, where she also did some acting. In 1999, she earned two simultaneous degrees from Duke University: a Juris Doctor, summa cum laude, and a Master of Arts degree in political science. She was also editor-in-chief of the Duke Law Journal.
Career
After graduating from law school, Teachout clerked for Chief Judge Edward R. Becker of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She served as the Director of Internet Organizing for the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign. In 2009 she helped found the Antitrust League. She was the first national director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes transparency and accountability in government.
She has been a professor at Fordham Law School since 2009. She was a visiting professor of law at Duke University in 2007 and a lecturer at the University of Vermont.
Actor
Teachout is also an actor who has performed in many plays at the Unadilla Theatre in Marshfield, Vermont, directed by Bill Blachly, 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. In 2013, Teachout was Lady Utterwood in George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House. In 2019, she played Anne in Florian Zeller's 2012 play The Father.
Public affairs
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.
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.
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.
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. In October of that year she was appointed to the editorial board of The Nation.