Folks,

Samya was supposed to turn 30 this year.

We simply miss her, every minute of every day. She was the glue in our family. Samya was always positive – a happy warrior. She was 6 feet tall and wore 4” heels, a brilliant data geek who loved to have fun and get everyone together. She might be married by now, might have a baby as many of her friends do. I still keep expecting her to come in the door from her many travels.

The world misses Samya too, even without knowing it, because she helped countless people in her global health projects and would have helped many more. What impact would she have had?

We will never know. Because all that Samya was meant to become was wiped out in an instant when a Boeing 737 Max plane veered into the ground just moments after take-off.

Samya, and 346 other loved, needed, beautiful people were gone.

Passengers and crew on Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 were killed instantly when the 737 Max’s MCAS system activated improperly and forced the plane into a nosedive. It was the SAME sequence of events that plunged another 737 Max out of the sky four months earlier off the coast of Indonesia. 

This was more than a tragedy. It was a crime. My daughter and 346 others were killed by Boeing – and five years later we are still seeking justice.

One of the first places I turned was Congressman Rick Larsen of Washington’s 2nd district. We went to meet the congressman in the spring of 2019 with other families of crash victims.

Larsen was emotionless and wooden. He began by making excuses for Boeing. He blamed the crashes on pilot error – even though it was already widely reported that Boeing’s own faulty design was to blame.

I exploded with a sudden burst of rage and yelled “THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” I told Larsen that HE failed to provide sufficient oversight to the FAA’s certification of the plane’s design and production process. As chair of the House Aviation Subcommittee, Larsen had direct oversight of the industry and the FAA. This was his responsibility.

The exchange clearly shook him. The next time we met he was briefly supportive of our collective demand for accountability.

But that was short-lived.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (then chair of the Transportation and Infrastructure committee) led a historic investigation with multiple House hearings into Boeing’s conduct and the FAA’s failures. After DeFazio retired, and the Alaska Air blowout occurred, Larsen (now ranking member of House Transportation) dismissed calls for House investigations into Boeing, (although the Senate did hold them) referring to the idea as “a circus.” True, Boeing is properly embarrassed in such hearings. That must be what Rep. Rick Larsen means by a circus, as he protects one of his biggest contributors. 

Despite being repeatedly fined, entering into a deferred prosecution agreement (which they immediately violated), and facing increasing public outcry, the safety incidents with Boeing are accelerating.

Through it all, Rick Larsen has acted more like the Congressman for Boeing than for Bellingham.

Criminal perpetrators at Boeing are continuing to risk human lives and won’t stop until they are forced to by a criminal court.

Rick Larsen cares more about Boeing’s approval than the lives of the 347 Boeing 737 Max victims – or the millions of people who fly on Boeing planes every day.

He will go to any length to protect Boeing from criticism and give them free rein to cut corners on public safety – as long as the campaign checks keep coming.

Larsen believes that “yelling at Boeing leadership” in open hearings doesn’t help ensure public safety. I fervently disagree. It was the families’ refusal to back down or stay silent, our determination to confront those responsible for killing our loved ones, that finally provoked the Department of Justice to pursue criminal charges against Boeing this year.

Boeing is America’s largest exporter, and the largest aviation company in the world. It takes guts of steel to confront the criminal malfeasance of a $100 billion dollar company – guts that Rick Larsen doesn’t have.

I share my story with you today both as an outraged, still-grieving mother and a candidate for US Congress like Jason Call. Larsen impedes our fight for justice. But Jason would be as powerful an ally in Congress as he is as a citizen.

Jason’s primary is only a few days away, and he’s the only shot we have at ousting the Congressman from Boeing. Please help him win this important election with a contribution to his campaign today.

The day we lost Samya, she was working for an NGO, headed to Uganda to help assess health initiatives funded by the Gates Foundation. Samya was passionate about her work as an accountability analyst and was considered an emerging leader in global health. Her father and I were eager to see where she would take her career and her life.

Yet her story is only one of 347 killed by Boeing’s criminal conduct. Each of them deserve to be remembered; each of them deserve justice.

My fight for Samya continues in my run for Congress against Democrat Richard Neal – who, like Larsen, is heavily funded by corporate interests. If you’d like to contribute to my campaign, any support would be appreciated.

For now, we need your help to get Jason across the finish line this Tuesday so that he and I can take on Larsen and Neal together this November.

In solidarity,

Nadia Milleron

Independent Candidate for Congress

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