Ross C Anderson

Rocky Anderson returned to the practice of law in Salt Lake City to challenge brutality by certain law enforcement officers, the exclusion of third-party and independent candidates from presidential debates by the Republican- and Democratic-controlled Commission on Presidential Debates, and the wrongful conviction of a man currently serving 30-years-to-life in the Utah State Prison. 

Rocky was the Justice Party candidate for President in 2012 and co-founded that party in 2011. He founded High Road for Human Rights, where he served as Executive Director from 2008-11 and served as Mayor of Salt Lake City from 2000-2008. Before serving as Mayor, he practiced law for 21 years and was listed in Best Lawyers in America, served as Chair of the Utah State Bar Litigation Section, was Editor-in-Chief of Voir Dire legal journal,and, through his advocacy, expanded legal protections for consumers, investors, patients, and incarcerated people. 

During his years practicing law, he helped economically-disadvantaged people obtain access to the judicial system and served in many capacities with numerous community non-profit organizations. He served as President of the boards of the Utah affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Penal Reform (which he founded), and Guadalupe Education Programs, and as a board member of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and Common Cause of Utah. 

For decades, Rocky has been an outspoken human rights, government reform, and environmental advocate. He has fought vigorously for compassionate and rational immigration reform, for full equality for the GLBT community, for campaign finance reform, for an end to the disastrous so-called war on drugs and for the implementation of effective substance abuse education and treatment programs, for effective action to end the worsening climate crisis, for reform of our criminal justice system, and for the protection of human rights. 

Rocky was named by the Human Rights Campaign as one of the top ten straight advocates in the United States for GLBT equality and is the recipient of the Sierra Club Distinguished Service Award, the EPA Climate Protection Award, the Respect the Earth Planet Defender Award, the National Association of Hispanic Publications Presidential Award, The Drug Policy Alliance Richard J. Dennis Drugpeace Award, the Progressive Democrats of America Spine Award, the Air & Waste Management Association Richard Beatty Mellon Stewardship Award, the League of United Latin American Citizens Profile in Courage Award, the Morehouse College Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award, the World Leadership Award for environmental programs, and the Patriot Award of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. Rocky was named by Business Week as one of the top twenty activists in the world on climate change and served on the Newsweek Global Environmental Leadership Advisory Committee. 

          Rocky has largely devoted himself since leaving office as Mayor of Salt Lake City to educating, organizing, and mobilizing people at the grass roots level to push for effective action for economic, social, and environmental justice. 

          His most recent publication is Anderson & Thronson, "Achieving Climate Protection: Fostering an Essential Focus on Human Rights and Human Impacts," Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy, Vol. 27, Issue 1 (2013).