Ohad "Ady" Barkan (
Hebrew: אדי ברקן; December 18, 1983 – November 1, 2023) was an American lawyer and activist. He was co-founder of the Be a Hero
PAC[1] and was an organizer for the
Center for Popular Democracy, where he led the Fed Up campaign.[2] Barkan confronted Senator
Jeff Flake on a plane in 2017, asking him to "be a hero" and vote no on a tax bill that threatened cuts to
Medicare,
Medicaid, and
Social Security.[3]
Barkan attended high school in Claremont, where he took an early interest in progressive activism like the fight against anti-gay rights legislation.[8] Barkan next attended
Columbia College, taking courses taught by economists
Joseph Stiglitz and
Jeffrey Sachs, and graduating cum laude in 2006.[9] He went on to
Yale Law School, where he earned his
Juris Doctor in 2010.[10]
Barkan worked for the
Center for Popular Democracy.[12] organizing local left-wing officials through the Center's Local Progress initiative.[13] He grew the network to over 1,000 participants and helped win paid sick leave in New York City in 2013 and a $15 minimum wage in Seattle in 2014.[13] Beginning in 2012, Barkan developed the Fed Up campaign, also through CPD, to advocate with the
Federal Reserve for the impact of
monetary policy on low-income people. Organizing protests at the Federal Reserve's annual meeting in
Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Fed Up sought to slow the raise of interest rates and more broadly change the governance structure of the Federal Reserve; by 2014, the group was included in the annual meeting's agenda.[14] Barkan met with then Chairwoman
Janet Yellen and reportedly influenced her to increase prioritization of minimizing unemployment in the Federal Reserve's dual mandate.[15][16] In HuffPost, Daniel Marans wrote that this effort "was all part of Barkan's appetite for taking on unlikely fights and making his own odds with a blend of wonkish idealism and sheer determination. And it reflected an institutionalist optimism that has fallen out of fashion in some quarters of the left: a belief that even the country's most elite institutions could be penetrated by the right social movement."[13]
Advocacy after ALS diagnosis
In December 2017,[17] Barkan engaged Republican U.S. Senator
Jeff Flake of
Arizona about Flake's impending vote on the proposed
tax cuts, an exchange captured on video by another activist, Liz Jaff,[18] when they were on the same cross-country flight.[19] Barkan pressed Flake on the
PAYGO cuts to
Medicare,
Medicaid and
Social Security that such large tax cuts would trigger,[20] endangering programs that Barkan's disease meant his survival would soon depend on. He pleaded with Flake to "be an American hero" and vote against the tax cuts to ensure that patients like Barkan would not lose access, for instance, to the
ventilator Barkan would eventually need to be able to breathe.[21][22] Flake voted for the cuts.[3] Following that encounter, Barkan developed the Be a Hero campaign that supports a range of progressive causes and candidates.[23]
During the 2018
Supreme Court confirmation hearings of
Brett Kavanaugh, in collaboration with the Maine People's Alliance and Mainers for Accountable Leadership,[24] Barkan and the Be a Hero campaign advocated for Republican U.S. Senator
Susan Collins of
Maine to vote against the nomination; among other issues,[24] Kavanaugh opposed abortion and while Collins had indicated she would not support a nominee who would overturn Roe v. Wade,[25] she nevertheless seemed likely to support the nomination. After making little headway with other means of reaching Collins, Barkan turned to fundraising.[25] The effort sought
crowd-funded donations in the amount of $20.20 to back a Democratic challenger to Collins's 2020 reelection campaign in the event that Collins supported Kavanaugh;[25] Barkan used the
Crowdpac platform to collect pledges that would have been refunded to donors if Collins voted to oppose Kavanaugh's nomination. She ultimately voted to confirm and the campaign raised $4 million from more than 100,000 donors to fund 2020 challenger
Sara Gideon.[26][27] Gideon was subsequently defeated by Collins.
Barkan was also a national co-chair of Health Care Voter.[29] Barkan was named one of the Top 50 Political Thinkers in 2016 by Politico[30] and in 2018, he was listed in the 50 most influential American Jews by
Forward.[31] During the July 2019 debate,
Elizabeth Warren mentioned Barkan's struggle as an example of the inadequacies of private insurance.[32] In August 2019, Barkan had his first interview with a presidential candidate. He spoke with
Cory Booker and discussed Booker's plans for healthcare reform. During the interview, they also discussed how it was for Booker to watch his father, who died of Parkinson's, become ill and die.[33]
Barkan's book, Eyes to the Wind: A Memoir of Love and Death, Hope and Resistance, was published in September 2019 by Atria Books.[34] The book was blurbed by Elizabeth Warren and
Bernie Sanders and includes a foreword by
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.[35]
The 2021 documentary Not Going Quietly followed Barkan's activism after his diagnosis. The New York Times called it "a warm and generous portrait".[37]
In April 2022, as part of humanitarian charity
Oxfam's shareholder resolution campaign to press the three giant
COVID-19 vaccine makers to make their vaccines more accessible worldwide, Barkan appealed to the
Pfizer board of directors in a pre-recorded message.[38][39][40]
In September 2023, Barkan was honored with the "Freedom from Want" award from the
Roosevelt Institute, one of the annual
Four Freedoms Awards, "for his unapologetic work fighting for freedom from economic want and for a more just health-care system in the United States".[41][42][43]
^"'Greed Is Costing Lives': Global Actions Condemn Big Pharma's Vaccine Profiteering". www.commondreams.org. Retrieved November 2, 2023. During Pfizer's shareholder meeting, healthcare activist Ady Barkan presented a resolution pushing the company to support the transfer of vaccine technology to boost production and access across the globe. The resolution, sponsored by Oxfam America, fell short, garnering 27% of the vote from shareholders.
'We are in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in 100 years. Despite safe and effective vaccines like Pfizer's, thousands of people are still dying every day because protections against the coronavirus have not been made accessible to all. Billions of people remain unvaccinated in part because Pfizer cannot produce enough doses on its own, yet, Pfizer refuses to share its technology to boost global manufacturing.'