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:
“I beg you to speak of Woman as you do of the Negro—speak of her as a human being, as a citizen of the United States, as a half of the people in whose hands lies the destiny of this Nation.”
—Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906)
“The beginning, middle, and end of the birth, growth, and perfection of whatever we behold is from contraries, by contraries, and to contraries; and whatever contrarity is, there is action and reaction, there is motion, diversity, multitude, and order, there are degrees, succession and vicissitude.”
—Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)