Randall Terry | |
|---|---|
 Terry in 2024 | |
| Born | Randall Allen Terry (1959-04-25)April 25, 1959 (age 66) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Elim Bible Institute and College Whitefield Theological Seminary (BA) Empire State University (BA) Norwich University (MA) |
| Occupation | Author |
| Known for | Anti-abortion activist (Operation Rescue) |
| Political party | Republican (before 2011) Democratic (2011–2012) Constitution (2024) Independent (2012–2024, 2024–present) |
| Other political affiliations | Right to Life (1998) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 7 |
Randall Allen Terry (born April 25, 1959)[1] is an American politician and activist. Terry founded theanti-abortion organizationOperation Rescue. Beginning in 1987, the group became particularly prominent for blockading the entrances toabortion clinics; Terry led the group until 1991. He has been arrested more than 40 times,[2] including for violating a no-trespass order from theUniversity of Notre Dame to protest against a visit by PresidentBarack Obama.[3]
In 2003, Terry founded the Society for Truth and Justice and conducted a program he called Operation Witness. In 1998, he ran forCongress inUpstate New York, and in 2006, he ran for a seat in theFlorida Senate. Both times, he lost in theRepublican primary.
Terry ran in the2012 Democratic Party presidential primaries. He was theConstitution Party nominee for president of the United States in the2024 presidential election, and his running mate wasStephen Broden.
In 1986, Terry was arrested for the first time for chaining himself to a sink at anabortion clinic. Terry was frequently in the news because of his activities as the leader of Operation Rescue.
Terry was named as a co-defendant in the 1994Supreme Court case,NOW v. Scheidler, aclass-action suit to compel anti-abortion leaders to compensate clinics for loss of business. Terrysettled out of court with theNational Organization for Women. Rather than pay the settlement, Terry promptly filed for bankruptcy, prompting SenatorCharles Schumer to propose an amendment to a bankruptcy bill inCongress which would "specifically ... prevent abortion opponents from using the bankruptcy code to avoid paying court fines." The amendment was not included in the final bill. In 1998, NOW obtained more than 25,000 "frequent flyer miles" which were held by Terry in order to help satisfy a legal judgment.[4]
In 1990, Terry helped to organize protests outside the hospital whereNancy Cruzan was a patient, around the time when her feeding tube was removed. The group Missouri Citizens for Life was also involved in the protests, along with the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, a formerOperation Rescue staffer. He was also involved in protests which were related to theTerri Schiavo case. In 1994, Terry was a named defendant inMadsen v. Women's Health Center Inc. which ultimately made it all the way to the US Supreme Court. The Justices sided with Aware Woman Clinic and upheld a Buffer Zone.
On March 20, 2009, the White House announced that PresidentBarack Obama was going to speak at the May 17 Commencement of theUniversity of Notre Dame. Terry declared that Notre Dame, which is one of the foremost Catholic universities in the nation, should not have allowed Obama to speak. Terry objected to Obama's speech because Obama supports abortion rights. In an article which was published in the university's newspaper,The Observer, Terry was quoted as stating that he planned to turn the commencement into "a circus." On the Notre Dame campus on May 1, 2009, Terry was arrested for violating a no-trespassing order. He posted abond of $250 at the St. Joseph County Jail, was released that same day, and was assigned a court date later that month.[3][5] In a statement which he released to a Christian news service, Terry claimed that Notre Dame's invitation to Obama was a betrayal of Catholic teaching, comparing it toJudas' betrayal ofJesus Christ.[6]
WhenKansas obstetricianGeorge Tiller was murdered while he was serving as an usher in hisWichita church on the morning of May 31, 2009, Terry immediately issued a statement in which he denounced Tiller.[7][8] On the same day, June 1, Terry released a video in which he called presidentBarack Obama and pro-choice politicians "child killers", and he also stated that Tiller was a "mass murderer" who "reaped what he sowed." He voiced regret that Tiller was not able to "get things right with his maker" and he also stated that it was unfortunate that Tiller did not get a "trial of a jury of his peers and to have a proper execution."[9] Terry's comments provoked a backlash, and Operation Rescue released a statement disavowing any connection to Terry, specifically criticizing his statement that Tiller's murder had "the potential to propel us more quickly to our goal."[10][11] In an editorial, theAlbany Times-Union accused Terry of undermining the credibility of the "generally peaceful" anti-abortion movement.[12]
In 2013, Terry appeared on an episode of MTV'sTrue Life and during his appearance on the show, he advocated the criminalization of all forms ofbirth control. During the course of the episode he stated, "Do we want to make the pill illegal? Yes. Do we want to make the IUD illegal? Yes. The morning after pill? Yes. The patch? Yes. Anything that's a human pesticide, they all have to be made illegal. A woman has to go to jail if she kills her baby."[13]
Terry produces and hosts a television program titledRandall Terry: The Voice of Resistance, which airs on The Walk TV[14] and can be seen on his website "Voice of Resistance".[15]
In 1998, Terry ran for theUnited States House of Representatives inUpstate New York. Terry competed with radio station owner William "Bud" Walker for the Republican nomination to face Democratic incumbentMaurice Hinchey. Terry received the endorsement ofFocus on the Family headJames Dobson; however, national and state Republicans were not supportive of Terry's candidacy.[16] Terry was defeated by Walker 53% to 35%, but he was theRight to Life Party's nominee in the general election.[17] Terry came in third place, winning 7% of the vote, with Hinchey and Walker winning 62% and 31% respectively.[18] In 2000, Terry and his son Jamiel promoted the candidacy ofSteve Forbes in the Republican presidential primary.[19]
In June 2005, Terry announced plans to run in the primary against Florida Republican state senatorJames E. King, citing King's attempt to block legislation which would have kept Terri Schiavo alive. In August 2006, in an attempt to undermine King's support in a Republican primary the next month, Terry publicized an endorsement of King by "Bill Clinton" — actually,robo-calls by a professional impersonator of former presidentBill Clinton. The two "Clinton" scripts each contained a disclaimer. One was, "Hello friend, Bill Clinton here – not really!" The other was "This is a celebrity impersonation." Terry used the scripts and the impersonator in 43,000 calls. The "no amnesty" line was a reference toimmigration reform proposals which were an issue in many campaigns in 2006. On September 5, 2006, Terry was defeated in the primary, with King receiving over two-thirds of the votes which were cast.
| Campaign | 2012 United States presidential election |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Randall Terry |
| Affiliation | Democratic Party |
| Headquarters | 101 Cantwell Court PO Box 408, Purgitsville, WV 26852[20] |
| Key people | Mario G. Pavegliotreasurer[20] |
| Receipts | US$28,043 (September 5, 2014[20]) |
In January 2011, Terry announced his intention to challenge PresidentBarack Obama in theDemocratic Party primaries for thepresidential election of 2012.[21][22] His campaign strategy was based upon acommercial duringSuper Bowl XLVI featuring graphic photographs of aborted fetuses;[21] historically, the networks have refused all political and issue-related advertising during the Super Bowl, citingequal-time rules, and the advertisement did not air.[23]
The attempt to air the ads led to legal action[24] and a statement by the Democratic National Committee that Terry was not a legitimate candidate,[25] and thus should be forbidden privileges given others running.
In December 2011, he became the physical target of candidateVermin Supreme, who sprinkledglitter over his head during a debate, claiming he was "turning Randall Terry gay."[26]
Terry received 18% of the vote in the 2012 Democratic Oklahoma presidential primary. He also won 12 counties in the state, including the entirepanhandle, and was awarded two delegates in the Democratic primary.[27] Kansas TV station KDGL-LD[28] channel 23, is an Independent TV station serving Southwest Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle. It and its sister stations carry Randall's Walk TV program, broadcasting the length of the Panhandle. It was the only primary in which Terry won any counties or delegates. He had also appeared on the ballots in Alaska, Missouri, and New Hampshire. He received 22,858 votes or 0.3% in the Democratic primary.
Detailed below are theFEC-filed finances ofRandall Terry for President Campaign Committee as of September 5, 2014[20]
| Financial Source | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| Itemized Individual Contributions | 10,012 |
| Unitemized Individual Contributions | 13,006 |
| Total Contributions | 23,018 |
| Offsets to Operating Expenditures | 5,025 |
| Total Offsets | 5,025 |
| Total Receipts | 28,043 |
| Disbursements | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| Operating Expenditures | 30,274 |
| Exempt Legal and Accounting | 5,500 |
| Total Disbursements | 35,774 |
| Category | Amount (USD) |
|---|---|
| Beginning Cash On Hand | 7,731 |
| Current Cash On Hand | 2,802 |
| Net Contributions | 401,939 |
| Net Operating Expenditures | 379,678 |
Although he lives in West Virginia, Terry paid his filing fee and ran as an independent candidate for Congress in Florida's 20th District. Incumbent Democrat Alcee Hastings won that election with 88% of the vote on November 6, 2012.[29]
On March 29, 2024, Terry declared his candidacy in the2024 United States presidential election.[30]
 | |
| Campaign | 2024 Constitution Party presidential primaries 2024 United States presidential election |
|---|---|
| Candidate | Randall Terry Stephen Broden |
| Affiliation | Constitution Party (United States) |
| Status | Announced: March 29, 2024 Official nominee: April 27, 2024 |
| Website | |
| https://www.terry2024.com/ | |
He was nominated by theConstitution Party for president on April 27, 2024.[31] He said he would not accept the nomination ifStephen Broden was not nominated for vice president.[32] He was nominated by theConstitution Party of Oregon on May 28, 2024.[33] Some state parties such asNevada andUtah rejected Terry's nomination and instead nominated convention opponentJoel Skousen.[34]
In August 2024,The New York Times reported that someDemocratic Party donors and operatives were assisting Terry'sballot access efforts and seeking to promote his campaign amongpro-life voters, in order to help Democratic nomineeKamala Harris bytaking votes fromDonald Trump.[35]
Terry's campaign paid for ads that aired onABC in October, during commercial breaks forABC World News Tonight,Jimmy Kimmel Live!, andThe View.[36] They drew media attention for containing graphic photos of aborted fetuses, and narration which compared celebrities who supported abortion rights to Nazis.[37][38] Because Terry met theFederal Communications Commission's definition of a "legally qualified candidate", ABC was required to air the advertisements without any edits, though due to their controversial content, the network ran disclaimers noting its legal duty to broadcast them and warning viewers of the imagery within.[37][36]
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Terry has been married twice. With his first wife Cindy, he had a daughter and then he fostered two additional daughters and a son. He adopted the two youngest foster children. He has four sons with his second wife, Andrea.[39]
The son ofpublic school teachers, Terry was raised inRochester, New York. After dropping out of high school, hitch-hiking around the United States, and returning home to work in various jobs, he attendedElim Bible Institute, graduating in 1981.[39] He later earned degrees fromEmpire State College andNorwich University.[40]
In the early 1980s, Terry married Cindy Dean, a woman who he had met in Bible school.[19][41] In 1985, he met a woman who gave birth to her second child in prison and was planning to have an abortion rather than have a third child. Terry persuaded her to continue with the pregnancy and a daughter named Tila was born later that year. In 1987, Cindy and Randall Terry had a daughter together, whom they named Faith.[41] In March 1988, they took in Tila, then aged three, and her siblings Jamiel, 8, and Ebony, 12, as foster children. All three of them arebiracial; their mother was white. Terry formally adopted the two younger children in 1994 and on his résumé, he began to describe his family as: "Children: One by birth and three black foster children," although Ebony had left home at the age of 16 in 1991.[19]
Ebony, who was not adopted by Terry, uses the surname Whetstone, but Jamiel and Tila took and retained the surname Terry.[19][41] Ebony converted toIslam, a religion which Terry has preached is composed of "murderers" and "terrorists."[19] In 2004, Terry described his relationship with Ebony as "good."[19] However, Terry banned Tila from his home after she became pregnant outside of marriage twice by the age of 18; her first pregnancy ended in amiscarriage.[19][42]
In 1998, when Terry was accused of advocating racism while he was running for Congress, his son Jamiel stepped forward to defend him.[19] In 2000, Jamiel worked with his father onSteven Forbes' campaign for the Republican nomination for U.S. president, and he campaigned with his father againstgay marriage inVermont.[19] In 2004, Jamielpublicly announced that he was gay and he also wrote an article forOut Magazine, for which he was paid US$2,500.[19] When he learned that theOut article was going to be published,[19] Terry pre-empted Jamiel by writing an essay, "My Prodigal Son, the Homosexual", in which he writes of pain and disappointment, blames Jamiel's homosexuality and his other troubles on his childhood experiences, and contends that much of theOut Magazine article is false and was written by other people. Jamiel's response was, "My father's first and foremost aim is to protect himself. He talks about how I prostitute the family's name, but he's used the fact that he saved my sister from abortion and rescued me from hardship in his speeches and interviews. What's the difference?"[19]
In 2000, Terry divorced Cindy Dean, his wife of 19 years,[19] and married his former church assistant, Andrea Sue Kollmorgen.[41][42][43] Kollmorgen, born c. 1976, was approximately 25 years old at the time of their nuptials;[44] As a consequence of the divorce, the home on 119 acres (0.48 km2) where he had lived with Cindy and their four children was going to be sold.[43] In 2000, some in the press unfavorably compared his decision to divorce Cindy Dean and marry Kollmorgen to the opinion which he expressed in his 1995 book,The Judgment of God: "Families are destroyed as a father vents his mid-life crisis by abandoning his wife for a 'younger, prettier model.' "[19][45] His sentiments against divorce had been so strong that when his own parents got divorced, "Randall refused to let his children speak with their grandfather for three years," according to interviews which were conducted with the family by theWashington Post.[19]
As a result of Terry's divorce from Cindy Dean, the pastor of the Landmark Church ofBinghamton, New York, "unceremoniously tossed him out"[19] although Terry had been a member there for 15 years.[46] That church had previouslycensured him because he had abandoned his wife and the two children while they were still living at home in preparation for divorce, and it also censured him by claiming that he was engaging in a "pattern of repeated and sinful relationships and conversations with both single and married women."[42][46] After the censure and expulsion, Terry joined theCharismatic Episcopal Church, a denomination which was established in 1992.[46]
After a period of study which commenced in 2005, Terry formally converted toCatholicism in 2006, taking the confirmation name David Mark.[47] After his conversion, he disavowed his first marriage and divorce, saying, "There were tragic problems that were inherent to the marriage. According to Catholic doctrine as it has been taught to me, those problems made it aninvalid sacrament."[47]
In 2004, theWashington Post reported that Terry and Cindy's daughter was in college.[19] Five years into his second marriage, a 2006 article in theNational Catholic Register described his current family as "his three, soon to be four, rambunctious young boys."[47] Terry's second wife, Andrea, is also an anti-abortion activist and in 2008, she was arrested for trespassing while she was leafleting a Catholic cathedral parking lot with campaign fliers for a fictitious candidate who was advocating theenslavement of African-Americans. Terry stated, "The piece was intended to be incendiary and basically a satire," a protest against vehicles in the church parking lot which, he said, carried bumper stickers supportingpro-choice political candidates, particularlyRudy Giuliani.[44]
Terry's son Jamiel was killed in an automobile accident in November 2011. They had reportedly reconciled prior to Jamiel's death.[48] Terry's daughter Tila died in 2024.[49]
In 2012, Terry moved his family toRomney, West Virginia, to focus on his political campaign.[50]
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Maurice D. Hinchey | 99,249 | 52.56% | |
| Independence | Maurice D. Hinchey | 6,321 | 3.35% | |
| Liberal | Maurice D. Hinchey | 2,634 | 1.39% | |
| Total | Maurice D. Hinchey (incumbent) | 108,204 | 57.30% | |
| Republican | William "Bud" Walker | 47,084 | 24.93% | |
| Conservative | William "Bud" Walker | 7,692 | 4.07% | |
| Total | William "Bud" Walker | 54,776 | 29.01% | |
| Right to Life | Randall Terry | 12,160 | 6.44% | |
| Total votes | 188,835 | 100.00% | ||
| Democratichold | ||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | James E. King (incumbent) | 27,548 | 67.33% | |
| Republican | Randall Terry | 13,369 | 32.67% | |
| Total votes | 40,917 | 100.00% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Alcee Hastings (incumbent) | 214,727 | 87.90% | ||
| Independent | Randall Terry | 29,553 | 12.10% | ||
| Independent | Anthony M. Dutrow (write-in) | 5 | 0.00% | ||
| Total votes | 244,285 | 100.00% | |||
| Democratichold | |||||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Republican | Randy Fine | 110,764 | 56.66% | −9.87% | |
| Democratic | Josh Weil | 83,485 | 42.71% | +9.24% | |
| Libertarian | Andrew Parrott | 701 | 0.36% | N/A | |
| Independent | Randall Terry | 525 | 0.27% | N/A | |
| Total votes | 195,475 | 100.0% | |||
| Republicanhold | |||||
See2012 Democratic Party presidential primaries (ran as a Democrat) andThird-party and independent candidates for the 2024 United States presidential election (ran with theConstitution Party).
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