Get to Know Alex McCoy
Public Citizen News / July-August 2025
By Claire Simon
This article appeared in the July/August 2025 edition of Public Citizen News. Download the full edition here.
Alexander McCoy is a U.S. Marine veteran and skilled advocate with experience working both within and outside of government to effect change. Since completing his service with the military, he has held staff positions in Congress, the New York State Senate, and several organizations such as NextGen America. In 2016, McCoy aided in the successful passage of The Fairness for Veterans Act, which reformed the military discharge appeals process to provide a presumption in favor of veterans who subsequently received specific trauma diagnoses. Later, he co-founded the advocacy organization Common Defense, the largest grassroots movement of progressive veterans standing up for their communities. At Public Citizen, where McCoy works as senior advisor to the climate program, he is invested in toppling the reign of fossil fuel companies. In his spare time, he enjoys volunteering with fellow veterans and attending renaissance fairs in South Carolina in his full suit of armor. McCoy works remotely for Public Citizen, out of Orlando, Florida.
Q: Why did you enlist in the Marine Corps?
A: I’m the fourth consecutive generation of the male line of my family to have served in the military, and in that respect, it’s sort of the family business.
The military was an opportunity for me to make something of myself and a way to feel like I was able to do something worthwhile. So, I joined the Marine Corps in January 2008 despite disagreeing with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I was shaped by my six years in uniform in a lot of ways. I was serving during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, policy, which was repealed while I was in uniform. That was a formative experience because it showed me how disconnected the debate in Congress was from the actual experience of ordinary people like me and my fellow Marines, and instilled in me the importance of civic engagement. I didn’t want to be used as a political prop by people who wanted to keep in place a harmful status quo.
Q: How does your experience working inside the government compare to working at a nonprofit?
A: My experience working within government is that even when you’re working in an official capacity, understanding that for policymakers, elections are always in the back of their mind. I think that it is easy in the advocacy world to forget about that dynamic, particularly in organizations that do not have an electoral arm.
So you have to demonstrate that what you’re asking for has broad support, emphasize how it impacts their own constituents, and think about the ways they might be attacked by their opposition during the next election if they do what you are asking.
Q: What does your role with Public Citizen look like day-to-day?
A: My team’s objective is to hold fossil fuel corporations accountable through the legal system when we identify instances where their conduct may constitute criminal violations of the law. My specific role involves engaging with the local community to learn what their experiences have been, and supporting the efforts of that community to make polluters pay for the damage they have caused.
Q: What are some things you like about living in Orlando?
A: We had a great No King’s protest in downtown Orlando; I was thrilled to be there. And I’m really enjoying the local brewery culture.
Q: Who is someone you look up to and why?
A: Jane McAlevey, a labor union organizer, has a foundational model of organizing, of differentiating between “are we simply mobilizing the people who already agree with us over and over,” and “are we genuinely talking to the people who do not yet agree with us but could?” She mentored a generation of labor union organizers, and challenged us to unify all workers in a workplace. I think Americans across the ideological spectrum share a lot of the same values.