Chelsea Merta is a lifelong public servant and community activist. She has served as legal counsel & political consultant for St. Louis-area legislators & policymakers, assisting with drafting legislation for civil rights, women’s rights, environmental justice, consumer rights, and other social justice causes. She also teaches & advises on First Amendment issues, including protester rights and freedom of speech in the workplace.
Chelsea presently serves as Of Counsel for several St. Louis-area activist & nonprofit organizations, and she was a founding member of both the Young Friends of Operation Brightside St. Louis and the St. Louis chapter of the Red Shoe Society for the Ronald McDonald House Charities. Chelsea serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the St. Louis Observer. She is fluent in Spanish.
Chelsea is an ordained minister of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the penultimate faith for believers of the First Amendment and the separation of church & state. She is a graduate of the Sue Shear Institute’s Pipeline to Public Office program at UM – St. Louis, the SisterSong Reproductive Justice Training program, Wellstone Action’s grassroots organizing, and Choice USA (now URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equality) Reproductive Justice Leadership Institute, and has been civically engaged in St. Louis since 2011. She also is a New Leaders Council Fellow (‘14) and has been active in red state electoral politics for 15 years.