Tell House Leaders: Keep Standing Up To Bush
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Finally, an act of reason and courage from the Congress! But their work is far from over. |
The House of Representatives recently refused to rush through a just-passed Senate bill, which would allow the government to spy on innocent Americans' overseas phone calls and emails without a warrant – in violation of the Fourth Amendment. The bill would also give retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that shared private information about American citizens.
Join the ACLU and Common Cause in thanking House Leader Nancy Pelosi, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and other legislators who stood up to President Bush.
Sign and send your letter
Utah Legislative Report: Our Work So Far
On January 25, our board and staff met with legislators to brief them on the our legislative priorities for the session: election reform, reproductive rights, LGBT rights, immigration, and privacy.
At the top of the list is our work with lawmakers to tighten election laws that contributed to the irregularities uncovered by our investigations into the Ogden elections last November.
Luckily for Utahns, bills limiting reproductive rights health freedoms were off the radar early this session. This gave us the opportunity to focus on other areas, including some excellent and proactive legislation in the area of LGBT rights, such as HB 89, “Anti-Discrimination Act Amendments."
In a letter distributed to the House, we urged legislators to consider “the real and important need for state legislation providing protection from workplace discrimination for lesbians, gay men, bisexual and transgender individuals."
Immigration legislation, with its equal protection and due process implications, quickly became a focal point for our work at the Capitol. We aggressively opposed HB 237 "Illegal Immigration Enforcement Act", as well as HB 98 and HB 257 (both of which required use by public and private employers of the federal employment verification program to verify the legal status of workers.
We ardently opposed SB 81, "Illegal Immigration" and called for support of SB 97, "Immigration Task Force," charged with studying the immigration issue in Utah. We sent a letter to the Senate Government Operations and
Political Subdivisions Standing Committee outlining the many negative civil liberties implications of SB 81and mobilized our supporters with a call to action to stop the bill in its tracks.
Immigration received the lion's share of media attention, but there was plenty of action in other areas of Law Enforcement, too. We were proactive in drawing legislators' attention to the constitutional flaws of HB 156 "DNA Sample - Felony and Certain Misdemeanor Arrests", would have required law enforcement to take DNA from people simply arrested, rather than actually convicted, of any crime. Eventually a restriction was included to limit DNA collection to convicted criminals only which is still being considered.
We were also able to bring attention to the problems inherent in SB 260 "Disclosure of Public Employee Disciplinary Actions Amendments," which would amend the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act to keep all law enforcement disciplinary files secret. We pressed our concerns with the Salt Lake Police Department and Mayor's Office, and which resulted in a substitute bill that would keep information private until after internal investigations are complete and disciplinary actions taken. This bill died in committee, thus preserving the right of the public to have access to police misconduct records.
Recently, Karen McCreary, executive director, testified before the Utah House Government Operations Committee in support of HB 449, "Implementation of Federal REAL ID Act" which would prohibit Utah from participating in the national program.
Finally, we have urged the Utah Senate to reject SB 210, “Proof of Citizenship Required to Vote,” which would create barriers to voter participation by those who are lawfully entitled to vote in this state.
See a full list of our legislative actions so far by visiting the LEGISLATIVE AND POLICY WORK area of our web site.
