Maybe you’ve been getting emails from Public Citizen for years.
Or maybe you heard about us for the first time just in the past few months.
Either way, you might be wondering:
“In the 50 years since Public Citizen was founded, what have you done?”
“How did Public Citizen’s 500,000 supporters make a difference this year?”
“What’s in store for 2023?”
Let’s dive in.
50 YEARS OF CITIZEN-DRIVEN PROGRESS
We’ve been around since Richard Nixon was president. (Who would’ve thought back then that someone would one day disgrace the presidency more than he did?) Literally millions of people have been part of Public Citizen’s essential and historic work throughout the past half century.
Here are just a few examples of real, lasting progress that Public Citizen activists and supporters like you have made possible over the years:
Airbags In Every Car
That was us. We battled Detroit for decades. We didn’t stop until we won. And now nobody would buy — and no company would try to sell — a new car without airbags.
Getting Dangerous Drugs Off the Market
Through expert and diligent work in the courts and in federal agencies, we have forced some two dozen unsafe medications to be taken off the market, saving countless lives. And we have pressured the FDA to require stronger warning labels for numerous other medicines.
Freedom of Information Act
Thanks to our advocacy, Congress made the Freedom of Information Act into a vital open records tool that has allowed the American people to find out about government surveillance, unsafe foods and medicines, FBI spying on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and much, much more.
Banning Red Dye #2
This carcinogenic, and now infamous, food coloring was banned because of our four-year campaign to pressure the FDA — which was (and still is) far too cozy with corporate America — to do its job and protect consumers.
Superfund Sites
We played a critical role in the passage of the landmark Superfund law to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous waste and to allow the EPA to recover costs from those responsible.
Releasing Nixon’s White House Tapes
We led the litigation that ultimately resulted in the release of 4,000 hours of Richard Nixon’s secret tape recordings from the White House. Then we led the litigation that disclosed Nixon’s secret grand jury testimony. (We keep at this stuff.)
Exposing the Enron Scandal
Our research revealed possible favors by politically connected government regulators to Enron — a name now synonymous with willful corporate fraud and corruption.
Overturning Citizens United
From the moment the Supreme Court handed down its disastrous Citizens United ruling in 2010 — allowing billionaires and Big Business to spend unlimited sums interfering with elections — we have been a leader in the nationwide movement for a constitutional amendment to overturn the ruling and protect our democracy from the scourge of money in politics.
Again, those are just a handful of highlights. This list could go on for pages and pages.
WHAT YOU AND PUBLIC CITIZEN DID THIS YEAR
Of course, as impactful as our work has been over the past 50 years, the work we’re doing together — to fight corporate power, to hold government accountable, to defend democracy — never stops.
Here’s just a small sampling of what Public Citizen — that’s you, me, and 500,000 supporters all across America — took on in 2022.
January 6th and Donald Trump’s Big Lie
We worked tirelessly to support the congressional investigation into the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. On the day the hearings launched, we helped organize public watch events across the nation — which themselves generated news. We’ve elevated the January 6th Committee’s work in the press and on social media. And we’re organizing nationwide events around January 6, 2023, to demand accountability.
Big Pharma’s Price Gouging
For years, we have led the charge in Congress to empower Medicare — the world’s largest purchaser of medications — to negotiate prices with Big Pharma. That effort paid off with a measure in the landmark Inflation Reduction Act that allows Medicare, at last, to negotiate fairer prices for some key drugs. And this is only a first step. We will build on this initial success to provide America’s consumers with even more relief from Big Pharma’s greed.
Funding for Dirty Energy
With allies, we won a major victory when insurance giant AIG committed not to underwrite or invest in new coal, tar sands, and Arctic drilling projects. Averting climate catastrophe means we must transition away from fossil fuels as urgently as possible. One key to doing that is to stop funding and insuring even more coal and oil extraction.
Nursing Home Deaths from COVID-19
We won a series of legal decisions holding nursing homes accountable for recklessly exposing patients and workers to COVID-19 with fatal consequences.
Threats to Democracy
We spearheaded the major coalition that pushed for transformative democracy reform, passing legislation in the House of Representatives and bringing the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to the brink of passage in the Senate. That legislation would guarantee and expand the freedom to vote, end extreme racial and partisan gerrymandering, end Dark Money, and start to drive Big Money out of elections. While lockstep Republican obstructionism prevented the bill’s passage this year, we are not about to give up fighting to preserve voting rights and the foundational principles of democracy.
This list of hard-fought progress in the past year could go on and on, too.
WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO TOGETHER IN 2023
Here are just some of our priorities for the coming year:
- Continue our decades-long campaign to win Medicare for All. America is the only rich country on Earth that leaves millions and millions of its citizens at the mercy — or lack thereof, more accurately — of private, for-profit insurance companies. We will not stop until every American has affordable, quality health care.
- Press the Department of Justice to get far more serious about investigating and prosecuting corporate crime, which takes a truly immeasurable toll on our society — monetarily and in terms of injury and death — even as street crime dominates headlines and Republican fear-mongering.
- Build even more support — at the grassroots and within the corridors of power — for legislation like the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act to protect voting rights and secure our democracy.
- Win a rule from the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on Big Tech surveillance and privacy incursions.
- Through ongoing advocacy directed at the White House, see to it that President Biden uses his existing authority and issues an executive order requiring companies that do business with the federal government to disclose their political spending.
- Block Republican attempts to privatize and cut Medicare or to repeal Medicare’s authority to negotiate drug prices.
- Build on recent successes to demand that more banks and insurers stop propping up fossil fuel projects.
- Get more states (we already have 22) to pass resolutions in support of a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s anti-democratic Citizens United ruling.
- Confront Big Pharma’s immoral price gouging head on by pushing the Biden administration to authorize generic competition for cancer drugs that taxpayer dollars helped develop in the first place.
- Get across the goal line in our decade-long drive for OSHA to put commonsense rules in place to protect workers from extreme heat on the job. (Did you know that heat kills more people in America each year than floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes combined?)
- Oppose fossil fuel exports that are hurting American consumers and the planet we all live on just to put more money in Big Oil’s already overflowing pockets.
- Grow the movement to roll back bloated and wasteful Pentagon spending.
- Keep standing up to Republican voter suppression schemes and win protections for state and local election workers.
- And much, much more. We are going to be VERY busy.
So there you go.
Some examples of big things that everyday people have been able to do over the past 50 years, what we accomplished together this year, and where we’re going to focus our collective power in 2023 — all by working together as part of this shared project called Public Citizen.
And in case you don’t know, Public Citizen accepts no funding from Big Business or Uncle Sam. Our independence and integrity simply aren’t for sale. Never have been. Never will be.
That means everything we do together depends on individual supporters chipping in when they can to help make sure we have the real-world resources to continue fighting corporate power, holding government accountable, and defending democracy.
So, if you’re able, I’m hoping I can count on you to make a year-end donation today and help give Public Citizen the real-world resources it will take to do our part in fighting for progress.
Anything you contribute right now will be matched dollar-for-dollar.
DOLLAR-FOR-DOLLAR MATCH IS ON — DONATE NOW
Or sign up as a Monthly Donor today and your contribution will be matched dollar-for-dollar each month for a full year!
If donating today is not a good fit, that’s okay. I hope you’ll understand that I need to ask now and again — especially at this time of year — so that we have the financial strength to carry out all the essential work you and Public Citizen are doing together.
Thank you for being part of Public Citizen.
For progress,
- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen
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