Cynthia McKinney is a former United States Representative and the 2008 Green Party nominee for President of the United States. McKinney served as a Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1993–2003 and 2005–2007, first representing Georgia's 11th Congressional District and then Georgia's 4th Congressional District. She is the first African-American woman to have represented Georgia in the House.
In the 1992 election, McKinney was elected in the newly re-created 11th District, and was re-elected in 1994. When her district was redrawn and renumbered due to the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in Miller v. Johnson, McKinney was easily elected from the new 4th District in the 1996 election, and was re-elected twice without substantive opposition.
McKinney was defeated by Denise Majette in the 2002 Democratic primary, in part due to Republican crossover voting in Georgia's open primary election, which permits anyone from any party to vote in any party primary, and in part due to her "controversial profile, which included a suggestion that (President) Bush knew in advance of the Sept. 11 attacks."
After her 2002 loss, McKinney traveled and gave speeches, and served as a Commissioner in The Citizens' Commission on 9-11. On October 26, 2004, she was among 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those who were killed on 9/11 who signed the 9/11 Truth Movement statement, calling for new investigations of what they perceived as unexplained aspects of the 9/11 events. McKinney was re-elected to the House in November 2004, following her successor's run for Senate. In Congress, she advocated unsealing records pertaining to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and an investigation into the murder of Tupac Shakur and continued to criticize the Bush Administration over the 9/11 attacks. She supported anti-war legislation and introduced articles of impeachment against President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
She was defeated by Hank Johnson in the 2006 Democratic primary, after finding herself in the national spotlight again over the March 29, 2006 Capitol Hill Police Incident, where she was involved in a confrontation with a Capitol Hill Police officer who did not recognize her as a member of congress. She left the Democratic Party in September 2007.
Members of the United States Green Party had attempted to recruit McKinney for their ticket in both 2000 and 2004. In 2004, attempts were made to convince McKinney to run on the Green Party ballot line for president and on December 11, 2007, McKinney announced her candidacy for the Green Party nomination for President of the United States in the 2008 presidential election.