Against the vast majority, Rocky Anderson fought courageously for LGBTQ+ equality long before most supported it. Human Rights Campaign named Rocky as one of the top 10 straight LGBTQ+ allies in the US. He was the first Utah candidate to ride in the Pride Parade. As Mayor, Rocky required equality for city employees and their partners, regardless of sexual orientation. Rocky has always been there for all of us. Learn more about Rocky's advocacy for marriage equality and the LGBTQ+ community here. Support Rocky for Mayor by walking with him in the 2023 Salt Lake City PRIDE Parade.
During his years as mayor, Rocky successfully fought many important battles, including victories for mass transit, wise long-term growth planning, greater respect toward and legal protections for minority communities (including equal benefits for gays and lesbians and their partners), and for unprecedented youth programs. He successfully challenged the state’s English-Only law and opposed grandstanding Homeland Security campaigns against immigrant workers in the nation’s airports.
Rocky carried out a successful one-person national security campaign to ensure that every airport screened all checked luggage. He killed the DARE program in Salt Lake City schools and introduced to those schools proven, far more effective, drug-prevention programs. Rocky implemented perhaps the nation’s most comprehensive restorative justice programs, he created city-wide after-school and summer programs, and he was considered by many to be the “greenest mayor” in the U.S. During his service as Mayor, he preserved and significantly added to the City’s stock of affordable housing and open space. He reduced greenhouse gas emissions from city operations by 31% in three years and was one of the top climate protection activists in the world, winning the World Leadership Award in London for his environmental programs and advocacy.
Unlike some who run for elective office, Rocky is not driven by self-interest or by a lack of something else to do with his life. He has always searched for the best way to utilize his skills and energy in order to make the best contributions he can.
After serving two terms as Mayor, Rocky declined to run for a third term and, instead, devoted himself to educating, motivating, and mobilizing people to take action to stop human rights abuses. Anderson recognizes the importance of people at the grassroots level advocating and pushing for change.
Rocky founded High Road for Human Rights, a non-profit organization devoted to achieving major reform of US human rights policies and practices through unique, coordinated, and sustained grassroots activism, complementing the work of other human rights organizations.
High Road for Human Rights primarily addressed five issues: torture and the undermining of the rule of law, genocide, slavery, the death penalty, and the human rights implications of the climate crisis. For his work on human rights matters during his tenure as Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights, Rocky received the Morehouse University Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee’s Patriot Award.
Rocky carried out a successful one-person national security campaign to ensure that every airport screened all checked luggage. He killed the DARE program in Salt Lake City schools and introduced to those schools proven, far more effective, drug-prevention programs. Rocky implemented perhaps the nation’s most comprehensive restorative justice programs, he created city-wide after-school and summer programs, and he was considered by many to be the “greenest mayor” in the U.S. During his service as Mayor, he preserved and significantly added to the City’s stock of affordable housing and open space. He reduced greenhouse gas emissions from city operations by 31% in three years and was one of the top climate protection activists in the world, winning the World Leadership Award in London for his environmental programs and advocacy.
Unlike some who run for elective office, Rocky is not driven by self-interest or by a lack of something else to do with his life. He has always searched for the best way to utilize his skills and energy in order to make the best contributions he can.
After serving two terms as Mayor, Rocky declined to run for a third term and, instead, devoted himself to educating, motivating, and mobilizing people to take action to stop human rights abuses. Anderson recognizes the importance of people at the grassroots level advocating and pushing for change.
Rocky founded High Road for Human Rights, a non-profit organization devoted to achieving major reform of US human rights policies and practices through unique, coordinated, and sustained grassroots activism, complementing the work of other human rights organizations.
High Road for Human Rights primarily addressed five issues: torture and the undermining of the rule of law, genocide, slavery, the death penalty, and the human rights implications of the climate crisis. For his work on human rights matters during his tenure as Executive Director of High Road for Human Rights, Rocky received the Morehouse University Gandhi, King, Ikeda Award and the Bill of Rights Defense Committee’s Patriot Award.
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After teaching for two semesters as an adjunct teacher at the University of Utah, Rocky returned to the practice of law. During his last several years practicing law, he handled a wide variety of lawsuits, including child sex abuse cases[1] and several major civil rights cases. They included Rocky’s challenge to the killing of a pet dog by a Salt Lake City police officer who did not have a warrant or probable cause for entering the yard where the dog was located;[2] his exposure of the illegal surveillance by the NSA upon order of President Bush;[3] his representation of the victim of a wrongful police shooting;[4] his successful First Amendment challenge to the DABC’s threat to sanction Brewvies because it screened the movie “Deadpool” in violation of an unconstitutional state statute;[5] and his successful lawsuit against Salt Lake County and employees of the Salt Lake County Jail relating to the tragic death of a 37-year-old mother of three children resulting from the failure to diagnose and treat her peritonitis and to medically assess her condition.[6] Rocky’s many years practicing law focused on pursuing justice for people who were injured as a result of abuses of power.[7]
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Rocky devoted dozens of years of service to non-profit organizations in Salt Lake City, serving twice on the Board of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah (PPAU) and providing free legal services to PPAU; serving on the Board of Utah
Common Cause and lobbying for an end to gifts to legislators by lobbyists; and serving as President of the Boards of Guadalupe Schools (on whose Board Rocky served for 15 years), Citizens for Penal Reform, and the Utah affiliate of the
American Civil Liberties Union (for which Rocky handled cases free of charge and served as volunteer Legal Panel Director).
His civil and human rights work in his law practice, as a public servant, and in his non-profit endeavors led to Rocky receiving the prestigious national Leonard Weinglass In Defense of Civil Liberties Award from the American Association for Justice.
Common Cause and lobbying for an end to gifts to legislators by lobbyists; and serving as President of the Boards of Guadalupe Schools (on whose Board Rocky served for 15 years), Citizens for Penal Reform, and the Utah affiliate of the
American Civil Liberties Union (for which Rocky handled cases free of charge and served as volunteer Legal Panel Director).
His civil and human rights work in his law practice, as a public servant, and in his non-profit endeavors led to Rocky receiving the prestigious national Leonard Weinglass In Defense of Civil Liberties Award from the American Association for Justice.
[5] https://rockyanderson.org/law-practice/brewvies-vs-dabc-first-amendment/
