TOC's Public Advocate in Action

Edward Hudgins, TOC's Washington director has had a busy couple of months on the public advocacy front. He welcomed the holiday season in December with a commentary entitled "Will Government Kill the Sugarplum Fairy?" In it, he showed how the government's obsession with controlling our personal lives, seen in the war on tobacco, is now taking aim at foods that bureaucrats think are bad for us.

Regarding another holiday, his piece called "Color and Character" agreed with Martin Luther King Jr. that we should judge one another by character rather than color, lamented the tendency of many black leaders to promote policies based on race, but celebrated the rise of a new generation of American blacks who stand on their own achievements.

His commentary "Doctors Shrug," which appeared in the Washington Times, highlighted the national trend of physicians retiring early or threatening to strike because predatory lawyers and a defective tort law system have sent malpractice insurance rates skyrocketing. Hudgins's piece was circulated by various groups and individuals. At the Conservative Political Action Conference that he attended, one merchant recognized Hudgins's name and told him that his wife, a Florida doctor, had read the piece, loved it, and sent it around to colleagues. After the piece's publication an estimated 15,000 New Jersey physicians went on strike. It seemed that Atlas indeed was shrugging! In this issue of Navigator, Hudgins offers a much-expanded version of his op-ed, based in part on his conversations with doctors, including TOC sponsors.

Hudgins also wrote a moving commentary, "We Must Reach for the Stars," on the heroism of the shuttle Columbia's crew and the risks that we must take to achieve great things. This piece and his new book, Space: The Free-Market Frontier, just released by the Cato Institute, put Ed in great demand by the media to discuss the shuttle tragedy. He had three TV appearances, including one on Neil Cavuto's show on the Fox News Channel; he did five radio shows; and he was mentioned in at least ten publications including the Orange County Register, the Chicago Tribune, Newsday and Forbes.com.

Hudgins also had a letter published in the Wall Street Journal, in which he responded to William Buckley's remarks regarding Ayn Rand, virtue, and sacrifice. Lastly, he did a radio show on postal service privatization and received several media mentions for his views on that topic.