The Connecticut Citizen Action Group, or CCAG, is a public advocacy group prominent in Connecticut politics. Founded by politician and consumer advocate Ralph Nader and future Congressman Toby Moffett in 1970, CCAG seeks to promote social, economic, and environmental justice.
The organization has done extensive campaigning for clean elections, consumer protection, universal healthcare, environmental protection, and against government corruption and war. It is Connecticut's oldest and largest non-profit public interest group, with over 20,000 citizen members within the state.
Some of CCAG's past legislative victories include obtaining expiration dates on dairy products in 1972, passage of the nations second "bottle bill" (5 cent returnables on bottles and cans) in 1978, blocking the Interstate 84 expansion to Rhode Island in 1983, passage of the HUSKY (Health Care for Uninsured Kids and Youth) medical program in 1997, and the 2005 passage of the Citizens Election Program.
They are not affiliated with any political party and have no set ideology, but regularly endorse electoral candidates and political movements.
The organization is currently based in the West End of Hartford, Connecticut and regularly runs a team of canvassers.
Famous quotes containing the words citizen, action and/or group:
“In the kingdom of consumption the citizen is king. A democratic monarchy: equality before consumption, fraternity in consumption, and freedom through consumption. The dictatorship of consumer goods has finally destroyed the barriers of blood, lineage and race.”
—Raoul Vaneigem (b. 1934)
“His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and stern dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“[The Republicans] offer ... a detailed agenda for national renewal.... [On] reducing illegitimacy ... the state will use ... funds for programs to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to promote adoption, to establish and operate children’s group homes, to establish and operate residential group homes for unwed mothers, or for any purpose the state deems appropriate. None of the taxpayer funds may be used for abortion services or abortion counseling.”
—Newt Gingrich (b. 1943)