Robert Weissman, longtime director of the corporate accountability organization Essential Action, editor of the Multinational Monitor and an attorney with the Center for Study of Responsive Law, is Public Citizen’s new president, the organization announced Tuesday, Sept. 8.
Weissman, 43, is described as a staunch public interest advocate and activist whose top priorities are climate change, health care reform and financial regulation, as well as campaign finance reform.
“Public Citizen will do everything it has done so well for nearly 40 years – and more,” Weissman says. “We are going to continue to work in all branches of government and address a broad spectrum of issues. We also will develop new ways to work with our members and allies, so that together we build new forms of citizen power. And we will invest more in organizing people, both virtually and through traditional on-the-ground means. I am proud to follow in the footsteps of Public Citizen’s first president and founder – Ralph Nader – and Joan Claybrook, who served as Public Citizen’s president for 27 years.”
Claybrook announced last December that she was stepping down. A lengthy list of accomplishments cited by Claybrook included stopping the expansion of triple-trailer trucks, limiting their operation to about a dozen, mostly western, states. Public Citizen also has been involved in the ongoing ligitation regarding the hours-of-service rules.
