Michael Pertschuk

Michael Pertschuk (January 12, 1933 – November 16, 2022) 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.

Prior to joining the FTC, Pertschuk worked on Capitol Hill, where he was nicknamed the "101st Senator" owing to his influence in passing consumer protection legislation. Pertschuk served as chief counsel and staff director to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation from 1965 to 1976 and was instrumental in drafting the landmark legislation requiring cigarette warning labels and banning broadcast advertising of tobacco products. He also helped pass automobile and product safety laws and the Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act.

Early life and education Pertschuk was born on January 12, 1933, in London, United Kingdom. Pertschuk earned his Bachelor of Arts from Yale University in 1954 and was a member of the Manuscript Society.

Pertschuk served with an artillery unit in the United States Army from 1954 to 1956, reaching the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1957 he became an Assistant in instruction at Yale Law School, receiving his Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1959. He was admitted to the Oregon bar in 1959. From 1968 to 1977, he was Chief counsel and staff director for the Senate Commerce Committee.

In 1984, he was one of the co-founders of the Advocacy Institute in Washington, D.C.; he also served as its co-director and later became a director emeritus. He was instrumental in developing GLOBALink, the primary communication tool for the international tobacco control movement.

From 1984 to 1985, he was a Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.

In 2001, he published Smoke in Their Eyes: Lessons in Movement Leadership from the Tobacco Wars (about the failure of the 1997 settlement leading to the weaker 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement).

The papers of Michael Pertschuk are available at the United States Library of Congress. They span the years 1949–2002, with the majority of the papers concentrated from 1977 through 2001. They focus on Pertschuk's work in the arena of consumer protection and consist of two parts processed at different times. Part I relates primarily to Pertschuk's career in the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Part II focuses primarily on his writing projects and his work in the field of public interest lobbying and as a tobacco control advocate in the years following his departure from the FTC.

On May 1, 2013, he received the Champion Award from the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids for his five decades of leadership in the fight against tobacco.

Personal life and death Pertschuk married Carleen Joyce Dooley in 1954; they divorced in 1976. He married Anna Sofaer in 1977.

Pertschuk died of pneumonia at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on November 16, 2022, at age 89.

Publications Books Revolt Against Regulation: The Rise and Pause of the Consumer Movement (University of California Press, 1983) With Wendy Schaetzel: The People Rising: The Campaign Against the Bork Nomination (1989)