By Bobby Hoffman, Advocacy & Policy Counsel, Voting Rights

Due to high levels of enthusiasm and interest, election experts are predicting record-setting turnout rates in the upcoming 2020 election. In anticipation of this historic election, the ACLU, volunteers, and supporters of voting rights across the country have been advocating for state legislatures to adopt policies that improve registration, the voting process, and ensure that more citizens are eligible to participate.

This year, no state made greater improvements to the registration and voting process than New York. State legislators made voting reforms a priority and passed legislation to enact early voting, create a pre-registration system for 16 and 17-year olds, provide an online voter registration system with greater accessibility, and allow portability of voter registration records. Furthermore, the state legislature took initial steps in passing state constitutional amendments that will enable New Yorkers to request an absentee ballot without an excuse and to register and vote on the same day. These common-sense reforms will help ensure that more people will be able to participate in future elections. 

In addition to the advancements made in New York, other states improved their registration and voting processes this year. Maine enacted automatic voter registration to ensure that more eligible citizens are registered to vote before Election Day. Nevada and New Mexico enacted laws to allow for same-day voter registration. Virginia enacted no-excuse early in-person voting – a policy the state legislature has an opportunity to expand upon next year by passing additional pro-voter legislation. Lastly, Illinois enacted legislation to ensure that pre-trial detainees in jails can cast their ballot during elections. ACLU People Power volunteers in Illinois began campaigning for this policy change back in 2017. 

We’re all better off when more Americans participate in our democracy. In order to ensure that more citizens are eligible to participate in the upcoming election, the ACLU advocates for state legislatures to remove draconian voter disenfranchisement laws. These laws have racist roots and continue to fuel racial disparities in voting by disproportionately affecting African Americans. This year, progress was made in Colorado and Nevada, where individuals now have the right to register and vote immediately upon release from incarceration.

And just last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 4, the Voting Rights Advancement Act. The bill would help ensure racial barriers to voting are removed from elections across the country. Passing the VRAA will advance needed protections for people whose right to vote is under attack based on the color of their skin.

ACLU works to ensure that all eligible citizens have the right to register to vote, cast their ballot, and have their ballot counted. We will continue to advocate for policies to help ensure that all eligible voters can have their voices heard in the 2020 election.    

Part of an end of year wrap-up series. Read more:

In the Midst of Trump’s Attacks, Offshoots of Progress in Congress for Immigrants’ Rights

2019 was a Watershed Year in the Movement to Stop Solitary Confinement

The Death Penalty in 2019: A Year of Incredible Progress, Marred by Unconscionable Executions

The Battle for Abortion Access Is In the States

In 2019, We Fought Across the Country to Dismantle Mass Incarceration. We Won on Multiple Fronts.

Under Attack by Trump, Immigrant Justice is Advancing in the States 

By Jessica Arons, Senior Advocacy and Policy Counsel for Reproductive Freedom

This past year has been a critical one in the fight for reproductive freedom. For decades, politicians who want to interfere with people’s personal decisions about pregnancy have worked to push abortion care out of reach. They’ve quietly passed 483 state abortion restrictions since 2011 — including 59 new restrictions passed in 2019 alone. And after Trump was able to put two new justices who are hostile to abortion rights on the Supreme Court, politicians decided to go for broke. 

Since Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation, seven states have passed laws banning abortion from the earliest days of pregnancy, all of which have now been blocked. The ACLU has challenged five of the new early bans, stopping these laws from going into effect in Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio. Because of our work alongside our partners, abortion is still legal in all 50 states.

The threat to abortion access is real, and with such a volume of anti-abortion laws being passed, it can be hard to stay hopeful. But even as we saw extreme attacks throughout the South and Midwest, 2019 was also a banner year for historic wins.

In seven states, legislators passed eight bills to protect and expand access to abortion care. New York and Illinois passed Reproductive Health Acts, laws recognize the right to prevent, end, or continue a pregnancy as fundamental; treat abortion as health care rather than a crime; authorize nurse practitioners and other advance practice clinicians to provide abortion care; and remove outdated abortion restrictions from their books.

This victory was especially important in Illinois, which is surrounded by states that are hostile to abortion rights and already serves as a refuge for those who cannot obtain care — like in neighboring Missouri, where the last abortion clinic hangs by a thread.

Vermont and Rhode Island also acted to ensure that the right to make decisions regarding pregnancy will remain protected in their states, regardless of what the Supreme Court might do to Roe v. Wade. And Nevada, whose voters had already ratified abortion rights at the ballot in the 1990s, repealed a law that put people at risk of prosecution for ending a pregnancy on their own and updated its informed consent law to be aligned with the current standard of care.

In California, a coalition of student organizers from across the state led the campaign to pass a first-in-the-nation law to guarantee access to abortion pills on state college campuses and universities at student health centers. More than half of all students in University of California and California State Universities are low income, and students of color, low-income students, first-generation college students, and students who are already parents or supporting their families are particularly harmed by barriers to accessing comprehensive reproductive care. This move ensures that thousands of students can get timely and affordable access to abortion care on campus when they need it.

Maine enacted two new laws. The first allowed qualified, non-physician health care professionals to provide abortion care, increasing the number of publicly-accessible health centers where someone could get an in-clinic abortion procedure from 3 to up to 18 locations. The second guaranteed that abortion will be covered in public and private health care plans, ensuring that people don’t have to choose between paying their bills and getting the abortion care they need.

We haven’t seen such robust protections enacted since the early 1990s — the last time people feared that the Supreme Court might overturn Roe. Recognizing the unique moment in which we found ourselves, ACLU staff at national and state offices worked to help secure these wins and channel fear and anger into action, whether by providing testimony and expert analysis, collaborating with coalition partners and lawmakers to successfully fend off attacks, or mobilizing constituent support.

The threat to abortion rights has by no means passed and the work isn’t over. We know that states passed these abortion bans in the hopes that the Supreme Court will take up one of the cases challenging them and rule to overturn or further dismantle Roe. And we know that more states are lining up to join them by passing additional bans when their legislatures reconvene in January.

Abortion opponents never rest, but neither do we. We will continue to prepare for and combat the worst effects of the Trump era while working to build a world in which all people can make the reproductive decisions that are best for them and can obtain the care they need.

Part of an end of year wrap-up series. Read more:

In the Midst of Trump’s Attacks, Offshoots of Progress in Congress for Immigrants’ Rights

2019 was a Watershed Year in the Movement to Stop Solitary Confinement

The Death Penalty in 2019: A Year of Incredible Progress, Marred by Unconscionable Executions

The 2020 Election Promises Record Turnout

In 2019, We Fought Across the Country to Dismantle Mass Incarceration. We Won on Multiple Fronts.

Under Attack by Trump, Immigrant Justice is Advancing in the States 

By Ari Rosmarin, Deputy Director

This year, despite deep political divisions, one area of growing consensus from stakeholders on both sides of the aisle was the need to reform our country’s criminal legal system. 

Implementation of the First Step Act coincided with Democratic presidential candidates making criminal legal reform a cornerstone of their policy platforms — so much so that 14 of the original field of candidates supported a 50 percent decarceration goal. Here at the ACLU, we continued to deepen our commitment to challenging racism in the criminal legal system and getting people out of prison and jail.

The Problem 

The numbers are astonishing. Since 1970, our incarcerated population has increased by 700 percent ­­— more than 2.1 million people are in jail and prison today. Extreme sentences keep more people in jail for longer periods of time, prosecutors have almost unlimited power, and nearly 700,000 people are in jail daily.

In 2019, our Campaign for Smart Justice alone engaged with almost 6,000 volunteers across the country and met directly with more than 2,000 state legislators on legislation aimed at challenging injustice in the criminal legal system. These efforts ultimately helped pass 75 bills in statehouses across the country, translating into thousands fewer people incarcerated.

Here are some highlights from the fight this year:

Sentencing Reform

Mandatory minimum sentences, “three strikes” enhancements, and restrictions on release are a piece of the twisted equation that holds millions of people in jail and prisons far longer than they should be. Scrapping these tough-on-crime laws is key to dismantling the architecture of mass incarceration. 

In Delaware, we played a leading role in an incredibly productive legislative session that saw 11 reform bills passed, including H.B. 5, which restored judges’ power to impose concurrent sentences and eliminated requirements that sentences run consecutively for most crimes. Lawmakers also passed S.B. 47, which eliminated racially discriminatory sentence enhancements for drug possession within 300 feet of schools and parks, and revised drug weight classifications to reflect usage patterns accurately. 

In Missouri, together with the Missouri Sentencing Coalition, we helped pass H.B. 192, which requires the parole board to evaluate those currently serving mandatory minimum sentences and decide if they should be released. After four years, this reform is projected to decrease the state’s prison population by 925 people.

In Oklahoma, alongside Oklahomans for Criminal Justice Reform, we succeeded in passing HB1269, a compromise measure aimed at making our 2016 drug and property reclassification ballot initiative retroactive. This law ultimately led to Governor Stitt approving the release of 527 people through commutation, the largest single-day commutation in U.S. history.

Prosecutorial Reform 

Voters are increasingly recognizing the power that prosecutors hold as gatekeepers of mass incarceration. To address the disproportionate power that prosecutors wield, this year in Connecticut, we led the effort to pass S.B. 880, a first-of-its-kind law that would create the most comprehensive transparency requirements for prosecutors anywhere in the country. Our campaign was led by formerly incarcerated people and focused on centering directly impacted populations.

S.B. 880 requires prosecutors’ offices to collect and share data on charges, diversionary programs, bail requests, plea deals, contact with victims, sentencing recommendations, demographic information, and more. 

In Louisiana, our work this session included passage of S.B. 146, a landmark bill to limit prosecutors’ practice of unjustly jailing sexual assault and domestic violence victims using material witness warrants. This victory built off of our lawsuit in 2017 challenging Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro’s use of fraudulent subpoenas to jail witnesses of crimes.

This progress continued with passage of Oregon’s H.B. 3224, which requires every district attorney to create policies for the core functions of their office and make them available to the public.

Bail Reform

In 2019, we fought to end wealth-based incarceration and pass bail reform in more than 30 states. One highlight took place in Colorado, where together with partners we successfully advocated for H.B. 1225, which eliminates cash bail for petty and low-level offenses, and S.B. 91, which mandates quick release once bond is posted and eliminates fees assessed against the bond amount.

Re-Entry 

Incarceration often prevents people from accessing jobs, housing, and educational opportunities long after serving time in prison or jail.

In August of this year, the ACLU of Kentucky and its partners in the Smart on Crime coalition celebrated the passage of S.B. 57, a bill that expanded expungement opportunities for an important category of felony offenses.

The ACLU of New Mexico’s Smart Justice Campaign led the advocacy campaign with its partners in the New Mexico SAFE coalition for passage of a package of criminal legal reform bills, including legislation to “Ban the Box” and expand expungement opportunities for an array of offenses. 

The deeply entrenched systems that we confronted this year not only destroy lives; they ultimately do not make communities safer and increase the likelihood that people return to prison.

Dismantling the labyrinth of racist policies that make up the criminal legal system is no easy task, and much work remains to be done in 2020 and beyond. But the ACLU’s work to advance justice, expand freedom, and fight racism continues to grow, deepen, and win significant legislative victories throughout the country.

Part of an end of year wrap-up series. Read more:

In the Midst of Trump’s Attacks, Offshoots of Progress in Congress for Immigrants’ Rights

2019 was a Watershed Year in the Movement to Stop Solitary Confinement

The Death Penalty in 2019: A Year of Incredible Progress, Marred by Unconscionable Executions

The 2020 Election Promises Record Turnout

The Battle for Abortion Access Is In the States

Under Attack by Trump, Immigrant Justice is Advancing in the States