Samuel A. Simon is an American playwright and performer and author, and leading national advocate and author for consumer protection and social justice movements. [1] [2]
Simon grew up in El Paso, Texas; he attended Mesita Elementary School, and in 1963 graduated from El Paso High School. He went on to graduate from the University of Texas at El Paso, and received a J.D. degree from the University of Texas Law School in Austin. [3] [4]
At age 25, he became a founding member of Nader's Raiders, a high-profile public interest and advocacy group spearheaded by Ralph Nader which critically examined the Federal Trade Commission. As a result of the group's work, the FTC reformed and toughened its consumer protection and anti-trust enforcement. [5]
He has testified to Congress, [6] and published numerous articles and books on consumer advocacy issues. [7] [8] [9] In the 1980s, he served as executive director of the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting, a national advocacy group backed by Nader which drew attention to excessive violence on children's TV programming. [10] The group, which often struggled with funding issues, [11] was frequently in the news, and—following the breakup of the AT&T monopoly—worked to provide consumers with information to compare long-distance services provided by various carriers. [12]
Simon wrote an intensely personal play in 2012 titled The Actual Dance, which chronicles an emotional family roller coaster that began when his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer. "It's sad when two loving souls face leaving each other because of a life-threatening illness," he told a Houston reporter in 2018. [13] The play has been performed hundreds of times since 2013.
In October, 2021, Simon published The Actual Dance, a memoir based on the play of the same name, "told through the eyes and heart of a husband as he struggles with his worst fears during what everyone expects to be his wife's losing battle to breast cancer." [14] The book was a winner of the 2022 IPPY Bronze Medal for memoirs on aging/death and dying. [15]
Simon's father was a traveling salesman, and his mother worked as a bookkeeper. In 1966, he married his wife, Susan (née Kalmans), a former teacher and psychiatric social worker. They currently live in McLean, Virginia, and have two grown children and four grandchildren. Their son, Marcus Simon, is a state delegate serving in Virginia; their daughter, Dr. Rachael Simon Proper, is a pediatric dentist in Catonsville, Maryland. [16] [17]
He is active in his local community. In 2016, Governor Terry McAuliffe appointed him to the board of directors of the Virginia Recreational Facilities Authority. [18] [19]
Ralph Nader is an American perennial presidential candidate, political activist, author, lecturer, and attorney noted for his involvement in consumer protection, environmentalism, and government reform causes. He became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for his book Unsafe at Any Speed, which criticized the automotive industry for its safety record and helped lead to the passage of the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966.
El Paso is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the U.S., the most populous city in West Texas, and the sixth-most populous city in Texas. The city has also the largest Hispanic population share of main cities in the U.S. with 81% of its population being Hispanic. Its metropolitan statistical area covers all of El Paso and Hudspeth counties in Texas, and had a population of 868,859 in 2020.
Public Citizen is an American non-profit, progressive consumer rights advocacy group, and think tank based in Washington, D.C. with a branch in Austin, Texas.
The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public research university in El Paso, Texas. It is a member of the University of Texas System. UTEP is the second-largest university in the United States to have a majority Mexican American student population after the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity." The university's School of Engineering is the nation's top producer of Hispanic engineers with M.S. and Ph.D. degrees.
The Consumer Federation of America (CFA) is a non-profit organization founded in 1968 to advance consumer interests through research, education and advocacy.
The El Paso Times is the newspaper for the US city of El Paso, Texas. The paper is the only English-language daily in El Paso, but often competes with the Spanish-language El Diario de El Paso, an offshoot of El Diario de Juárez which is published across the Rio Grande in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico.
Michael Pertschuk was an American attorney and advocate for consumer protection and public health. He served as a member of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 1977 to 1984, and served as FTC Chair from 1977 to 1981. During his tenure, Pertschuk worked to strengthen the FTC's consumer protection powers.
Samuel Joseph Johnson is an Australian actor. He is best known for his roles as Evan Wylde in the television series The Secret Life of Us for which he won the AFI award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Telefeature in 2001, Leon Broznic in Rush, Toby Kirby in After the Deluge and as Molly Meldrum in the miniseries Molly for which he won the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama and won the Gold Logie for Most Popular Personality on Television of 2017.
Robert Francis "Beto" O'Rourke is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas's 16th congressional district from 2013 to 2019. A member of the Democratic Party, O'Rourke was the party's nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2018, a candidate for the presidential nomination in 2020, and the party's nominee for the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election.
Enrique Moreno was a Mexican-American attorney from El Paso, Texas and once a federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Alan Butler Morrison is an American attorney and the co-founder of Public Citizen Litigation Group.
The Oregon Progressive Party is a political party in the U.S. state of Oregon. Originally called the Oregon Peace Party, it was accepted as the sixth minor statewide political party in Oregon on August 22, 2008. This allowed the party to nominate Ralph Nader as its candidate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. In September 2009, the party changed its name to the Oregon Progressive Party, to "more accurately reflects the party's positions" on issues besides peace, including "social justice, consumer advocacy, environmental protection, and worker's rights."
Harvey Rosenfield is an American lawyer, author and consumer advocate. In 1985, he founded Consumer Watchdog, a nationally recognized, nonpartisan nonprofit public interest group. He serves as the group's counsel.
Donald Kemp Ross was an American public interest lawyer. Ross proposed the model of Public Interest Research Groups (PIRGS) with Ralph Nader. Ross became the first director of the NYPIRG. He helped to found the Albany law firm of Malkin & Ross, and its associated advocacy organization M+R Strategic Services. He has served on the board of directors of environmental organizations.
Marcus Bertram Simon is an American lawyer and politician from Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Simon is the member of the Virginia House of Delegates for the 53rd district, which includes Falls Church and parts of Fairfax County. His committee assignments include: Finance; Courts of Justice; Public Safety; and Communications, Technology and Innovation. He serves as Democratic Floor Leader for the House Democratic Caucus. He is appointed to the Freedom of Information Advisory Council. Simon was one of the eight legislators appointed to the 2021 Virginia Redistricting Commission, along with eight citizen members. As a lawyer, Simon was a member of the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the United States Army and currently owns his own law firm.
John Dunning Boice Jr. is an American radiation epidemiologist and health physicist.
Angela Denise Trimbur is an American actress, writer, dancer, choreographer, and former reality television participant.
Clarence Mintzer Ditlow III was an American consumer advocate, primarily focusing on automotive safety. He was closely associated with Ralph Nader's organizations, and has been given credit for helping to instigate several critical safety changes within the auto industry.
Rosa Ramirez Guerrero is a Mexican American educator, artist and historian from El Paso, Texas. She was the founder of the International Folklorico Dance Group. Guerrero has also been active with work in the Catholic Church, and has been called the "Dancing Missionary" in religious circles. She is also known for her multicultural dance programs which have been performed around the country and featured in a film called Tapestry. She was inducted into the Texas Women's Hall of Fame and has an El Paso school named after her.
On August 3, 2019, a terrorist mass shooting occurred at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, United States. The gunman, 21-year-old Patrick Wood Crusius, killed 23 people and injured 22 others. The Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and a hate crime. The shooting has been described as the deadliest attack on Latinos in modern American history.