Rocky Anderson JUSTJustice

Ross Carl "Rocky" Anderson (born September 9, 1951) is an American attorney, writer, activist, and civil and human rights advocate. He served two terms as the 33rd Mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah from 2000 to 2008. He is currently seeking a third term in the 2023 Salt Lake City mayoral election.Prior to serving as Mayor, Anderson practiced law for 21 years in Salt Lake City. He was listed in Best Lawyers in America, and received the highest rating, A-V, by Martindale-Hubbell. He also served as chair of the Utah State Bar Litigation Section, and contributed to Voir Dire legal journal as a writer and Editor-in-Chief. He was the 1996 Democratic nominee for Congress in Utah’s Second Congressional District.Following his terms as mayor, Anderson founded and served as the Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights (2008–2011), a human rights education and advocacy organization, and was a founding member of the Justice Party, which nominated Anderson as its presidential nominee in 2012. That election he was also nominated by the Natural Law PartyAfter the 2012 presidential campaign, Anderson taught for two semesters as an adjunct instructor at the University of Utah, then practiced law again until February 2021, during which time, among many other things, he challenged the NSA’s and former President Bush’s illegal surveillance, won an important First Amendment case against the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, successfully challenged the Utah Legislature’s scheme requiring that all medical cannabis be distributed by state or local health department officials instead of by the private sector, and successfully resolved major civil rights cases involving a wrongful police shooting, and the wrongful death of a pretrial detainee in the Salt Lake County Jail. Anderson then served as a full-time volunteer Executive Director of the Justice Party (now Allied Justice) until beginning his campaign in August 2022 for another term as Mayor of Salt Lake City.As mayor, Anderson was a major leader and advocate relating to several national and international causes, including climate protection, immigration reform, restorative criminal justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and an end to the "War on Drugs". Before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Anderson was a leading national opponent of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and a leading opponent of illegal surveillance and torture.Anderson was named by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as one of the top-twenty activists in the world regarding the climate crisis. He 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.