Rocky Anderson
Ross Carl "Rocky" Anderson II 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.
Prior to serving as mayor, Anderson practiced law for 21 years in Salt Lake City, during which 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 and returned to his legal practice, frequently bringing legal challenges to government programs. Anderson also served as the 2012 presidential nominee for his newly created Justice Party, receiving 43,000 votes out of more than 129 million votes cast. Anderson ran again for mayor of Salt Lake City in the 2023 mayoral election, but he lost to incumbent Erin Mendenhall 58% to 34%.
Early life and education
Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson was born in Logan, Utah, one of three children of Roy and Grace Anderson. His parents both worked at Anderson Lumber Company, a local lumber yard founded by Rocky's great-grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant carpenter who had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.Though Anderson does not currently consider himself to be a Mormon, he was raised as one and was a practicing member of the LDS Church in Logan. He 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 ceremonies prior to 1978. Anderson has likewise expressed his disagreement with the LDS Church's teachings and policies relating to members of the LGBTQ+ community. Anderson also expresses disagreement with what he describes as the LDS teaching of personal moral abdication through obedience to people in positions of authority, arguing that it violates the principle of personal conscience and individual moral development and accountability.
Amidst a wide variety of courses, Anderson studied ethics, political philosophy, and religious philosophy at the University of Utah.
During high school, Anderson played lead guitar in a rock and roll band, the Viscounts, and worked at a cabinet and roof truss plant. He also shingled roofs during his high school and college years. After graduating from Ogden High School, Anderson attended the University of Utah, during which time he served as Treasurer for the Beta Epsilon chapter of Sigma Chi fraternity and worked at various jobs, including as a truck driver, a roofer, and a gas station manager. He earned a bachelor's degree in philosophy, graduating magna cum laude. After reading existentialist literature and several works on ethics, religious philosophy, and political philosophy, he had a "powerful epiphany. We can't escape responsibility, there's no sitting out moral decisions, and whenever we refuse to stand up against wrongdoing we're actually supporting the status quo."
After graduating from the University of Utah, Anderson worked at several jobs. He 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.
He 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. In 1978, Anderson graduated, with honors, from George Washington University Law School, earning his Juris Doctor.
Career
Law Practice
Upon graduation from law school, Anderson returned to Salt Lake City to practice law. He 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 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Anderson had an extremely diverse legal practice and represented plaintiffs in dozens of major cases, involving a wide variety of issues, including securities fraud, violation of church and state separation, civil rights, professional malpractice, abuse of incarcerated people, child sex abuse, and First and Fourth Amendment violations.Before he was elected Mayor of Salt Lake City, Anderson practiced law for twenty-one years in Salt Lake City, beginning as an associate with Berman & Giauque and later as a partner in Berman & Anderson; Hansen & Anderson; Anderson & Watkins; and Anderson & Karrenberg. After he returned to the practice of law in 2014, he was of counsel with Winder & Counsel, then was a partner at Lewis Hansen, and then practiced at Law Offices of Rocky Anderson until 2021, when he wound down his law practice and volunteered full-time as Executive Director of the Justice Party . He specialized in civil litigation in several areas of law, including antitrust, securities fraud, commercial, product liability, professional malpractice and civil rights. He often represented individuals suing corporations or government entities, including plaintiffs in the following cases:
- Bradford v. Moench: A consumer rights lawsuit in which Anderson successfully asserted a novel securities law theory and achieved, in a precedent-setting decision, broad protections for depositors in inadequately insured "thrift and loan" companies.
- Scott v. Hammock: A lawsuit in which Anderson represented a young woman who had been sexually abused by her adoptive father. During the case, Anderson challenged the right of confidentiality that the L.D.S Church asserted regarding non-penitential communications by the defendant with his Mormon bishop.
- University of Utah Students Against Apartheid v. Peterson: A case in which plaintiffs successfully asserted their First Amendment rights to symbolic speech after the university administration ordered them to remove shanties used to protest the university's investments in South Africa.
- Armstrong v. McCotter: A civil rights case involving a young mentally ill man, Michael Valent, who, while incarcerated in prison, died from a pulmonary embolism after being strapped naked in a restraint chair for 16 hours solely because of conduct linked to his schizophrenia.
- Bott v. Deland: A civil rights case based upon deliberate indifference toward and unnecessarily rigorous treatment of an incarcerated person with a severe medical problem. The case established, for the first time, protections for the rights of incarcerated people under the Utah Constitution far broader than under the United States Constitution. In that case, the Utah Supreme Court agreed that financial damages, not limited by state statute, are available for violations of the protections provided for incarcerated people under the State Constitution.
- Regan v. Salt Lake County: A class action challenging invasive searches, including strip searches, of women held on minor violations at the Salt Lake County Jail.
- Prettyman v. Salt Lake City: A civil rights case involving the excessive use of force by police, resulting in the breaking of a rod in the plaintiff's back.
- Harding v. Walles: A civil rights case involving the sexual abuse of a male prison inmate by a prison guard.
- Mitchell v. Roberts: A child sex abuse case, seeking to protect the right, created by the Utah Legislature, to sue a perpetrator even if the prior statute of limitations had already run.
- Cinema Pub v. Petilos: Successfully vindicated the First Amendment rights of a local theater that serves alcohol after the Utah D.A.B.C. sought to sanction the business for showing the movie Deadpool.
- Kendall v. Olsen: Sought justice regarding the warrantless invasion of a private backyard by a police officer who unjustifiably shot and killed the resident's beloved dog.
Volunteer work with non-profit organizations and activism.
When he was practicing law, 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. He served as president of the boards of the ACLU of Utah, Guadalupe Schools, and Citizens for Penal Reform, which he founded. He served as a board member of several other community-based non-profit organizations, including Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and Utah Common Cause. On behalf of Common Cause, Anderson lobbied for stronger legislation pertaining to ethical conduct by elected officials, as well as for campaign finance reform.While he was practicing law, Anderson opposed the Reagan Administration's efforts to overthrow the government in Nicaragua and some of the Administration's other policies relating to Latin America. He spoke publicly and debated regarding the U.S.'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. He also twice debated the commander-in-chief of the Contras, Adolfo Calero.
Moved by the suffering of the friends and family members of several women who had been murdered in the Salt Lake City area, but whose killings Salt Lake City police detectives had failed to solve, Anderson worked pro bono for many months, reviewing documents and locating and interviewing witnesses. His work, together with the efforts of others, led to the eventual grand jury indictment and conviction of a man for one of the murders.
Rocky served as Chair of the Board of Salt Lake Academy of Music and now serves on the Board of the Haitian Orchestra Institute.