81 Facts About Rocky Anderson

1.

Ross Carl "Rocky" Anderson was born on September 9,1951 and is an American attorney, writer, activist, civil and human rights advocate.

2.

Rocky Anderson served two terms as the 33rd Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah from 2000 to 2008.

3.

Rocky Anderson was the 1996 Democratic nominee for Congress in Utah's Second Congressional District.

4.

Rocky Anderson then served as a full-time volunteer Executive Director of the Justice Party until beginning his campaign in August 2022 for another term as Mayor of Salt Lake City.

5.

Rocky Anderson was named by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as one of the top-twenty activists in the world regarding the climate crisis.

6.

Rocky Anderson was a member of the Newsweek Global Environmental Leadership Advisory Board and was recognized by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the top ten straight advocates in the United States for LGBT equality.

7.

Formerly a member of the Democratic Party who won several Best Utah Democrat Awards and several Best Utah Elected Official Awards, Rocky Anderson expressed his disappointment with that party in 2011.

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8.

Ross C "Rocky" Anderson was born in Logan, Utah, one of three children of Roy and Grace Anderson.

9.

Rocky Anderson has described his disagreement with certain doctrines of the LDS Church, particularly the denial of the priesthood to men of black African descent and the denial to Black men and women of the right to engage in religious temple ceremonies prior to 1978.

10.

Rocky Anderson has likewise expressed his disagreement with the LDS Church's teachings and policies relating to members of the LGBTQ+ community.

11.

Rocky Anderson expresses disagreement with what he describes as the LDS teaching of personal moral abdication through obedience to people in positions of authority.

12.

Rocky Anderson believes in the principle of personal conscience and individual moral development and accountability, and considers any call for blind obedience as being incompatible with that principle.

13.

Amidst a wide variety of courses, Rocky Anderson studied ethics, political philosophy, and religious philosophy at the University of Utah.

14.

Rocky Anderson shingled roofs during his high school and college years.

15.

Rocky Anderson built buck fence at a ranch in Wyoming, tended bar in Salt Lake City, drove a cab, waited tables at a restaurant, worked at a methadone clinic, typed freight bills, and worked in construction.

16.

Rocky Anderson started graduate school in philosophy at the University of Utah, then traveled to Europe and lived and worked for a few months in Freiburg, Germany before returning to the United States to attend law school.

17.

In 1978, Rocky Anderson graduated, with honors, from George Washington University Law School, earning his Juris Doctor.

18.

Rocky Anderson participated in several jury trials in federal and state courts and handled appeals before the Utah Court of Appeals, the Utah Supreme Court, the United States District Court for the District of Utah and the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

19.

Rocky Anderson specialized in civil litigation in several areas of law, including antitrust, securities fraud, commercial, product liability, professional malpractice and civil rights.

20.

Rocky Anderson often represented individuals suing corporations or government entities, including plaintiffs in the following cases:.

21.

Rocky Anderson helped to spearhead the reform of Utah's child custody laws.

22.

Rocky Anderson worked to institute a program to help those who do not qualify for assistance through Legal Aid or Legal Services, but who are unable to afford to pay in full for legal representation.

23.

Rocky Anderson served as Chair of the Litigation Section of the Utah State Bar Association, and as president of Rocky Anderson and Karrenberg, a Salt Lake City law firm.

24.

When he was practicing law, Rocky Anderson was affiliated with several non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting civil rights, providing educational opportunities for economically disadvantaged children, protecting reproductive freedom, improving the penal and criminal justice systems, and strengthening legislative ethics.

25.

Rocky Anderson served as president of the boards of the ACLU of Utah, Guadalupe Schools, and Citizens for Penal Reform, which he founded.

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26.

Rocky Anderson served as a board member of several other community-based non-profit organizations, including Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and Utah Common Cause.

27.

On behalf of Common Cause, Rocky Anderson lobbied for stronger legislation pertaining to ethical conduct by elected officials, as well as for campaign finance reform.

28.

Rocky Anderson spoke publicly and debated regarding the US's illegal intervention in Nicaragua and organized two trips to Nicaragua for dozens of Utahns so they could see, and report back to the public, what was actually happening in the country.

29.

Rocky Anderson twice debated the commander-in-chief of the Contras, Adolfo Calero.

30.

Rocky Anderson served as Chair of the Board of Salt Lake Academy of Music and now serves on the Board of the Haitian Orchestra Institute.

31.

Rocky Anderson lost the 1996 race to Merrill Cook, achieving 37 percent of the ballots cast versus Cook's 60 percent.

32.

Rocky Anderson founded the Salt Lake City International Jazz Festival, as well as providing national and international leadership regarding climate protection.

33.

Rocky Anderson conducted a successful national campaign to require that airports across the country screen all checked luggage, expanded the area's light rail system, significantly expanded protected open space, implemented an innovative and highly successful restorative justice program and created a city wide after-school and summer youth program, YouthCity.

34.

Many of Rocky Anderson's achievements were described in his State of the City addresses and listed by the news media shortly before he left office.

35.

Rocky Anderson chose not to run for a third term so he could push for reforms of US human rights policies and practices through grassroots organizing.

36.

Elements of the program, which Rocky Anderson described as covering "everything from dog waste to nuclear wastes", included initiatives to improve the efficiency of the City's fleet and use of electricity, measures to make Salt Lake City more bicycle-and pedestrian-friendly, and co-generation plants at the City's landfill and wastewater treatment facilities that recapture methane to generate electricity.

37.

Rocky Anderson mandated that all city buildings use energy-efficient light bulbs and replaced SUVs in the city fleet with high-efficiency, alternative-fuel vehicles.

38.

Rocky Anderson almost doubled the city's recycling capacity in one year.

39.

In 2003, Rocky Anderson received the Climate Protection Award from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the Sierra Club acknowledged his environmental work with its Distinguished Service Award.

40.

Rocky Anderson exemplified "green living" through personal example, including xeriscaping his entire yard, installing solar panels at his home, recycling all recyclable materials, and using cold-water detergent, fluorescent bulbs, thermostat timers and a natural gas-powered car.

41.

Rocky Anderson later researched, produced, and narrated a muli-media piece regarding the need for tenacious, effective leadership to protect against further disastrous climate chaos.

42.

Rocky Anderson spoke on the subject of the climate crisis at side meetings at United Nations Conference of the Parties meetings in New Delhi, Buenos Aires, and Bali, and at conferences in Sweden, Australia, and across the United States.

43.

Rocky Anderson was the only representative from the United States to consult in London with representatives from G8 nations on climate change, in preparation for the 2005 G8 Summit.

44.

Rocky Anderson spoke on climate protection issues at the 2006 annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative and the 2007 annual meeting of the national Environmental Law Societies.

45.

Rocky Anderson is an ardent opponent of the tobacco industry, and has supported legislative measures to discourage smoking and tax tobacco products.

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46.

Rocky Anderson received the League of United Latin American Citizens's first-ever "Profile in Courage" award, as well as the National Association of Hispanic Publications' Presidential Award.

47.

Rocky Anderson signed an executive order in 2000 implementing a full-fledged affirmative action program in City hiring.

48.

Rocky Anderson restructured Salt Lake City's criminal justice system and, after reviewing the peer-reviewed literature indicating that DARE is ineffective in reducing drug use, discontinued the DARE program in Salt Lake City schools.

49.

Rocky Anderson called for an end to the failed "war on drugs" and for better drug prevention education, the implementation of harm reduction policies, and the availability of substance abuse treatment on demand.

50.

Rocky Anderson successfully lobbied President Clinton to grant a commutation of a lengthy prison sentence imposed on a Salt Lake City man who had already served several years in a federal penitentiary for his first and only conviction for violating drug laws.

51.

In 2000, Rocky Anderson ordered the Salt Lake City Police Department to end its participation in the DARE program.

52.

Rocky Anderson implemented reforms to ensure that mental health courts would channel mentally ill criminals into mandatory treatment programs rather than putting them behind bars.

53.

Rocky Anderson promulgated an administrative rule which stipulated that when it considered bids, the city should give preference to companies that paid a living wage to their employees.

54.

Rocky Anderson often spoke out against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and in favor of impeachment, including at several large rallies and state and federal legislative hearings, in Salt Lake City; Olympia, Washington; New York; and Washington, DC; and on national television and radio programs hosted by Amy Goodman, Bill O'Reilly, and Tom Ashbrook.

55.

Rocky Anderson engaged in a live debate with Sean Hannity that focused on Iraq and impeachment.

56.

Rocky Anderson did not spare his criticism of the Democratic Party, saying:.

57.

Rocky Anderson researched, wrote, produced, and narrated a major multimedia piece concerning the invasion and occupation of Iraq, as well as the case for impeachment.

58.

Rocky Anderson testified before the US House Judiciary Committee during a hearing on September 25,2008, concerning executive branch abuses of power, and spoke at rallies organized by High Road for Human Rights in which he called for accountability for torture.

59.

Rocky Anderson has researched, written, produced, and narrated two multimedia pieces focusing on torture and the undermining of the rule of law.

60.

Rocky Anderson opposed Susan Rice, whom Obama appointed as United States ambassador to the United Nations.

61.

Rocky Anderson criticized Rice for "doing nothing" to stop the Rwandan genocide as a staff member of the United States National Security Council.

62.

Rocky Anderson pointed to what he described as Obama's change of position after he received the Democratic presidential nomination on the question of immunity for telecom companies that cooperated with the Bush Administration's wiretapping program.

63.

Rocky Anderson has been, from the outset, an adamant critic of Donald Trump.

64.

Rocky Anderson has authored written pieces about Trump and his supporters, and produced two videos, in advance of the 2020 election, reflecting the sordid and misogynistic conduct and statements of Donald Trump throughout much of his life.

65.

On November 29,2011, the Salt Lake Tribune quotes Rocky Anderson as saying, "I'll be announcing my candidacy," for the 2012 presidential nomination of a new national political party.

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66.

John Rocky Anderson, who ran for president as an independent in the 1980 presidential election.

67.

Rocky Anderson formally accepted the 2012 presidential nomination of the Justice Party on January 13,2012.

68.

Rocky Anderson's running mate was Luis J Rodriguez, a Chicano activist and writer from California.

69.

In March 2012, Rocky Anderson announced that he was seeking the presidential nomination of Americans Elect in addition to campaigning as the Justice Party nominee.

70.

Rocky Anderson was nominated by the Natural Law Party in Michigan, the Independent Party of Connecticut, the Independent Party of New Mexico, the Progressive Party of Oregon, and was on the ballot in Idaho and Tennessee as an independent candidate.

71.

Rocky Anderson appeared on the ballot in new states under the Justice Party banner with running-mate Rodriguez.

72.

Rocky Anderson sought the presidential nomination of the Peace and Freedom Party, but withdrew his bid for that nomination in August 2012.

73.

Rocky Anderson received 43,018 votes, or 0.03 percent of the vote.

74.

When interviewed in September 2005 by the Deseret Morning News, Rocky Anderson stated that he disagreed with the policy, asserting that the provision of hospitality to out-of-town visitors is an important mayoral function, and that exceptions to the policy had been made previously.

75.

The Deseret News soon generated additional controversy with its coverage of an interview that Rocky Anderson gave to The Guardian newspaper in London.

76.

Rocky Anderson later said the comment, intended to be light-hearted, was not directed toward the state, its residents, or the LDS Church.

77.

Rocky Anderson responded that the trip to Turin was to continue the longstanding Olympic tradition of delivering the Olympic message without the use of any fossil fuels and did not cost Utah taxpayers any money since it was privately financed.

78.

On June 12,2007, following a meeting in a City Council workroom, Rocky Anderson was involved in a physical and verbal confrontation with a real-estate developer Dell Loy Hansen.

79.

Rocky Anderson appeared in the films, 8: The Mormon Proposition, and "Quiet Heroes".

80.

Rocky Anderson has one son, born in 1982, and has been married and divorced twice.

81.

Rocky Anderson is currently single and lives in Salt Lake City with his Golden Retriever, Franklin and, decades-old Yellow-Naped Amazon Parrot, Cardozo.