Anita Ríos – WI (Grn-OH-Senate)

Anita Ríos – WI (Grn-OH-Senate)

Anita Ríos - WI* Green Party Senatorial Candidate for Ohio

* denotes Write-In

This Biography of Anita Ríos was found on The Green Party website.

Anita Rios was born and raised in Toledo and grew up as one of eight children of parents who were Mexican American migrant farm workers. Her parents still live in the two-bedroom house where she was raised. Spanish was her first language, but she still managed to get her G.E.D. and graduate from the University of Toledo.

Like many Americans, Anita has worked in a variety of low-wage jobs, as well as jobs with better wages and benefits because of union contracts. As a result of her strong communication and organizing skills, she was elected to head the union at the Zepf Community Mental Health Center, which serves Lucas County with a wide range of behavioral health services. She negotiated two union contracts, and was the union’s representative to the regional labor council of the AFL-CIO.

A longtime Green Party activist and proponent of one-person-one-vote democracy for all people, Anita was active in the Ohio recount after the November 2004 election, and served as the lead plaintiff in the Rios versus Blackwell lawsuit. That case was filed in Federal District Court in Ohio in December 2004 to try to stop the Electoral College from certifying Ohio’s electoral votes when so much fraud and obstruction had occurred during the 2004 campaign and election in Ohio.

Anita has been married to Robert Hannon, a really cool mail man & co-founder of the Toledo City Bike Co-Op, for 30 years. They reside in the Old West End. Anita has raised two sons, Gabriel and Alexander, and is honored to be considered a second mom to several young men who she has welcomed to her kitchen and fed a time or two.

Rios serves on the Central Committees for both the Lucas County and Ohio Green Parties and is president of the Toledo chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). She is currently employed at the Center for Choice.