Milleron speaks at the Ralph J. Froio Senior Center in Pittsfield about her priorities.

Nadia Milleron, with son Tor, is running as an independent and will be on the ballot in November. 

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A family tragedy has led Nadia Milleron to run for Congress with hopes of shielding the First Congressional District — and beyond — from corporate interest.

Her 24-year-old daughter, Samya Stumo, was killed in March 2019 when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed just after takeoff. The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX, has been the subject of multiple lawsuits and one had a door panel blowout earlier this year.

"This is a very somber thing for me. I'm doing this, I’m running for Congress because a terrible thing happened to me and our family," she said.

"Our daughter was killed on a new Boeing plane, so a Boeing plane that was manufactured in a defective way, and the reason for that was that the (Federal Aviation Administration,) our government, was not doing their due diligence. They were not looking at these claims and seeing in what way they were going wrong."

Milleron recently spoke to community members at the Ralph J. Froio Senior Center about her priorities which also include advocacy for the middle class, increasing social security benefits, single-payer healthcare, and addressing the housing crisis.

She said Boeing seeks fatal exemptions to FAA regulations that are granted because of the company’s power.

"The problem is that every aviation regulation is written in blood. Every regulation that comes that is there took a long time to put in as a regulation and the reason it's there is because people died on airplanes. So it took a huge effort and it took many families raising their hands and saying, 'Hey, pilots need to be able to sleep before they fly on a plane’ because another plane crashed because pilots didn't get enough rest so then that regulation is put in," she explained.

"So when Boeing asks for exemptions to the regulations, they're risking people's lives and our FAA is just going along with it because Boeing has so much power and money and so they don't have the expertise and the focus and the energy to protect us."

Milleron found that this is true for many areas in the government and sought the help of local legislators but said that Congressman Richard Neal was hard to find. This was another factor in her push to run.

"I couldn't find him. He wasn't in his office and I found that representatives have a second office because they can't fundraise on Capitol Hill," she said. "So they have a second office where they go, and Richard Neal is always in that second office."

She does not particularly want to spend and raise the money for candidacy and recognizes that it isn’t the most fun way to spend time but feels obligated to do so.

"I am obliged to do so because my daughter wouldn't have died if the government was more vigilant if people were doing their jobs in government," she said. "And I can see that Congress is a mess."

The longtime Sheffield resident is a lawyer and a farmer who has helped defend patients of state mental institutions from the use of electroshock therapy. She is the niece of political activist Ralph Nader and grew up surrounded by consumer and environmental advocacy.

"I have a huge amount of compassion for human beings. I do not feel happy because my daughter died and what I want to do is make sure other people can feel happy," Milleron explained.

"That's what I want to do and I'm going to devote the rest of my time on this earth to trying to make it better because when I just was doing my own thing on my farm, I wasn't making the world better for other people and therefore the world got worse."

She had lost another child to cancer that she suspects came from herbicide used on a farm in Iowa.  After the fatal Boeing crash, Milleron maintained her position about not wanting to be a public figure but knew she had to do something.

"The crash happened on March 10 of 2019 and in April, the government was going to put the plane back in the sky without fixing it and I got up off the couch at that point," she said.

She recounted her tearful walks through the halls of Congress while advocating for the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act that was passed in 2020, noting that Neal voted for it but did not help her as other legislators did.

"I think campaign finance reform is key because the leverage that the lobbyists have when they go in is money. So I'll give you money for your campaign but if that was limited, then the leverage would also be limited," she said.

"The leverage we had was saying, 'Look, you people, if you don't address this aviation safety issue, you or your loved ones can die on a plane,' so ultimately, that was more leverage than the money."

Milleron pushed for an Illinois bill to allow for the recovery of punitive damages in wrongful death actions, which was signed by the governor last year. This included driving out to the state, registering as a lobbyist, and finding a state representative to sponsor the bill.

During her visit to the senior center, she also spoke about battling corruption in campaign finance, consumer safety for pharmaceuticals, the positives of Medicare for all, and solutions to the housing crisis such as cooperative housing.

The candidate is running as an independent, explaining that there are 50,000 registered Republicans in the district, 148,000 registered Democrats, and 337,000 independents and she has a chance to win selection.

"I’m not saying that the whole world is going to be solved. I'm saying that it's worth it to try," she said. "It’s worth it to try and for my conscience, seeing as I was a person who didn't try it for all those years. I am going to try."

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