Rising Up For Justice: Lawyering in the Public Interest

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FEATURING DR. JOSHUA MILLER - Our nation and our world is overrun by billionaires and bigots, but they are few and we are many. On this series, exclusive to subscribers of Rising Up With Sonali and viewers of Free Speech TV, we’ll hear from organizers in the movements for social justice, and dig into the nuts and bolts of values, strategies, tactics, narratives, and building power. 

This week on Rising Up for Justice, Dr. Joshua Miller joins us. He is the Director of Congress Watch at Public Citizen, leading a large and diverse federal advocacy team advancing healthcare affordability, financial accountability, consumer protection, AI and tech policy, tax fairness, and corporate responsibility. 

ROUGH TRANSCRIPT:

Sonali Kolhatkar: I’ve followed Public Citizen’s work for decades. It's one of those organizations that you maybe take for granted, that's always been there and going to be there doing really important work. And like many legal advocacy organizations like Center for Constitutional Rights, who we've profiled, or for example, the ACLU, I know that you're primarily engaged in sort of lawyering for the public interest. I saw that, that slogan on your website. How do you describe to someone who's never heard of Public Citizen, what your main goals are? 

Dr. Joshua Miller: You know, we function from a very simple premise, which is democracy should be responsive to the public and not to corporations. And yes, we do engage in litigation, but we have so many tools, but the same mission. 

We also engage in federal advocacy. I happen to lead a very large diverse team focused on a range of public policy issues. We also engage in the regulatory process. We produce investigative research to really help policy makers and the public understand what the executive branch is doing, what corporations are doing. 

And if I was to really describe how Public Citizen works, which is we answer to the public, we represent the public and not the shareholders. And that is much different than what we're seeing right now, both in government and in corporations.