This election season, untold numbers of eligible voters are at serious risk of being denied access to the polls. Are unfair and unnecessary voter ID laws to blame? Is it because their houses are under foreclosure and their registrations are being challenged? Yes. But there’s more: the poor administration of felony and misdemeanor disfranchisement laws across the country.

Approximately 5.3 million Americans with criminal records are barred, by law, from casting votes. The immoral and undemocratic nature of these disfranchisement laws aside—Brent Staples has a nice treatment of this issue on his blog—their implementation has led to widespread confusion about who is eligible to vote and when. A new report by the ACLU and the Brennan Center for Justice documents the chronic lack of knowledge about these laws among the very people charged with administering them: state elections officials. To add insult to injury, another new report by the ACLU finds that the vast majority of voter registration forms fail to adequately explain state disfranchisement provisions.

The consequence is the mass dissemination of inaccurate information, leading to the de facto disfranchisement of qualified voters. The number of people potentially affected by this problem jumps sharply, as a result, from 5.3 million to 47 million—the number of Americans with criminal records. (Yes, one in six Americans has some sort of criminal record—makes you think differently about what it means to be a "criminal," doesn’t it?) Even people without criminal records have the potential to be affected by confusing information, as the voter registration report shows.

This mass confusion is as predictable as it is disturbing. Disfranchisement laws vary widely across the country and are often quite complex, specifying different treatment for people convicted of felonies versus misdemeanors, those with first felony convictions versus multiple felony convictions, individuals with in-state versus out-of-state convictions, people on probation versus parole, etc. Even I have a hard time keeping track of all the different provisions.

So what’s the solution? Well, there is a desperate and immediate need for education. Education of elections and criminal justice officials, who should be trained to understand fully their respective state laws and answer questions from voters. Education of people with criminal records, who should receive information about their eligibility to vote when under, and being discharged from, supervision. And education of the public, who should be able to easily access clear and comprehensive information about eligibility through a variety of media platforms.

Or we could just eliminate these laws.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for thousands of U.S. citizens living along the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has been quietly carrying out a policy that discriminates against U.S. citizens of Mexican descent who live along the border and whose births were attended by midwives or took place at a local clinic.

If you’re unfortunate enough to fit into these two categories, when you apply for a passport, the DOS will likely question your U.S. citizenship, and tell you to submit a litany of other documents—including school records, a local newspaper’s birth announcement, your mother’s pre-natal care records, baptismal certificates, immunization records—all documentation that isn’t required of any other U.S. citizen applying for a passport, to prove your citizenship. After forking over as many of these documents as you can find, and often paying more fees—DOS will respond by abandoning your application and classifying it as "filed without action." Passport denied.

So today, the ACLU and the ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit against the DOS challenging this arbitrary and discriminatory policy. The lawsuit argues that the way in which the U.S. State Department is deciding whether to issue passports to American citizens is a violation of both the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution. 

This lawsuit comes at a critical time. Starting next June, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) will require a passport to cross all land and sea borders. This new requirement is problematic for border state residents who have family or jobs in Mexico and who cross the border regularly for affordable medical care and prescriptions. Previously, U.S. citizens only needed a state-issued ID to cross the border into Mexico.

Take the situation of one our plaintiffs in the lawsuit, David Hernandez. David was born in San Benito, Texas, to an 18-year-old mother who could only afford the services of a midwife to deliver him. David grew up and was schooled in Texas, and after graduating high school, served a decorated three-year stint in the U.S. Army. When he applied for a passport, the DOS gave him the runaround. They asked for a newspaper clipping announcing his birth: San Benito didn’t have a newspaper. They asked for pre-natal care records: his mother couldn’t afford pre-natal care. He submitted his baptismal certificate and school and immunization records. But they weren’t enough.

So despite his U.S. birth, three years serving in the U.S. military and fulfilling the extra documentation requests, David is still without a passport. You can listen to a podcast of David telling his story, and learn more about the lawsuit, Castelano v. Rice, on this webpage.

Today, we remember the anniversary of an event that showed this country how far we still have to go. It was three years ago today that Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast and delivered devastation on a scale many Americans never would have thought possible. Close to 2,000 people lost their lives in the storm and awful floods that followed.

In the days, weeks and months after Katrina, it became shockingly clear that the storm was a human rights as well as humanitarian disaster. It exposed the deeply painful reality about how those who were poor and black in the wealthiest country in the world were literally left to fend for themselves.

The ACLU, particularly our affiliates in Louisiana and Mississippi, worked mightily in the period after the storm to document the full scale of the human rights tragedy, as well as to prevent ongoing civil liberties and civil rights abuses against those who were impacted by it.

On the first anniversary of the storm, the ACLU’s National Prison Project published Abandoned and Abused: Orleans Parish Prisoners in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina, which documented the horrors suffered by the thousands of men, women and children who were abandoned at the Orleans Parish Prison in the days after the storm struck.

Last year, the ACLU published Broken Promises: Two Years After Katrina, which exposed the civil rights abuses that had occurred in Louisiana and Mississippi since the storm, including reports of heightened racially motivated police activity, housing discrimination and ongoing prisoner abuses.

2008 has been marked by heartbreaking stories in the news about the plight of the homeless, many suffering from addiction and mental health problems, in New Orleans, as well as revelations about formaldehyde levels in FEMA trailers that, as was reported in the Washington Post, "may have triggered a public health catastrophe among the more than 300,000 people, many of them children, who lived in the FEMA homes."

The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of the most shameful episodes from one of the worst administrations ever to lead our nation. Whoever wins the election in November will have plenty of work to do along our Gulf Coast, which will be particularly urgent now that they are facing a looming affordable housing crisis.

As we mark this third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, a documentary has just opened that is getting amazing reviews and seems to present this event as I’ve never seen. It is called Trouble the Water. It definitely looks like something worth checking out when it comes to a theater or Netflix queue near you.

Today marks the 45th anniversary of a true watershed moment in the civil rights movement and American history — the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Several hundred thousand Americans — from every racial background — gathered at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial here in Washington, D.C., and heard the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have a Dream” speech. This was one of those special occasions that really helped to awaken the conscience of our country and changed it for the better.

In the two years that followed, Congress would pass and President Johnson would sign into law both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — legislation that opened doors of opportunity and the promise of democracy for countless millions of Americans.

When you think that African-Americans were literally putting their lives at risk by attempting to vote in some parts of our country little more than 40 years ago, it’s remarkable how far we’ve come as a nation. As Dr. King himself said “Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.”
While there’s no question we have yet to reach Dr. King’s “promised land,” it is worth pointing out that as we honor a shining moment in American history, an African-American stands on the cusp of becoming the nominee of a major political party for president of the United States. This is a moment that all Americans should take pride in, irrespective of our many varying personal political beliefs.

Going forward, we all can recommit ourselves to working to honor and fulfill Dr. King’s dream. As far as we’ve come in the past 50 years, imagine the changes we can bring about by 2063!

Earlier this morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee met and passed, by a voice vote, reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA). Since the 1970s, this landmark law has been providing critical protections for youth who find themselves in the criminal justice system.

Not only was an important bill advanced, but it was actually strengthened by an amendment that was offered by Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland and adopted on a bipartisan vote (listen, I’m as surprised as you, dear readers). The Cardin Amendment corrects a loophole in the JJDPA that allows so-called “status offenders” — youth whose offenses would not be considered criminal but for their age — to be placed in detention under certain circumstances.

What are status offenses you ask? They include things like violating curfew, being truant from school and running away from home. Studies have shown that there are better alternatives to confinement and more appropriate interventions for these young people that could draw them away from the school-to-prison pipeline and towards becoming productive members of society. Sen. Cardin deserves thanks (as do the 10 other Judiciary Committee members who voted in favor of the amendment) for helping to make sure this will happen.

Surely that must be all right? Amazingly enough, no! Last night, there was concern over a proposed amendment by Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona that would have given prosecutors vast powers to try youth in the adult system (PDF). This would have been a real poison pill, but, at the last minute, Kyl chose not to offer it (something about waiting until the legislation gets to floor). I like thinking that maybe he saw the writing on the wall. If not that, then hopefully he recognized that that putting youth into the adult system not only makes them extremely vulnerable to abuse behind bars, but also greatly increases the chances that they will commit crimes down the road.

All in all, it was a great morning for those of us who care about improving the juvenile justice system.

Isn’t the right to vote freely for a candidate of your choosing just that: the right to vote freely for a candidate of your choosing?

Not according to one Virginia legislator, who seemed to forget the whole principle of small "d" democracy when he characterized efforts to educate people with felony convictions about their right to vote as a big "D" Democratic conspiracy. "I don’ t know a lot of young Republicans who end up being felons," C. Todd Gilbert told The Washington Post. "Clearly the groups that are soliciting these felons to get their rights restored are predisposed to be in support of Obama, and I am sure this registration effort is designed to help their candidate."

(By way of background, a patchwork of state felony disfranchisement laws, inconsistent from state to state, prevent a whopping 5.3 million Americans with past felony—and, in seven states, misdemeanor—convictions from voting. More are disfranchised by general confusion about and elections officials’ misapplication of these laws.)

Even if we indulge the Gilberts of the world momentarily, all we have to do is scratch the surface to see that plenty of Republicans have helped reform their states’ disfranchisement policies in favor of greater enfranchisement. (Not to mention the fact that people of all political persuasions go to prison; just check out this New York Times interview with people incarcerated in Maine and Vermont.)

Louisiana’s Republican Governor Bobby Jindal just signed a bill that requires the Department of Public Safety and Corrections to notify people leaving its custody about voting rights restoration and to provide them with a voter registration form. Jindal is in good company. It was Florida’s Republican Governor Charlie Crist who revised his state’s antiquated law last year to ease voter restoration for some people with nonviolent felony convictions. And George W. Bush, when he was Governor of Texas, signed a bill eliminating the state’s two-year waiting period before voting rights could be restored.

These distinguished gentlemen are joined in their support of increased access to the polls for this population by Jack Kemp (former Congressman and Republican Vice-Presidential candidate) and Chuck Colson (Nixon’s former Chief Counsel), and no one questions their Republican cred. In fact, a diverse array of organizations has spoken in favor of greater enfranchisement, including the American Probation and Parole Association, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the American Correctional Association.

Felony disfranchisement’s nasty roots in voter suppression should remind us that promoting access to the polls for all eligible voters is fundamental to the health of our democracy. Following the Civil War, Southern states faced the enfranchisement of large African-American populations as a result of the 15th Amendment; in response, they scrambled to maintain white rule by, among other things, enacting or reforming felony disfranchisement laws in order to curtail African-Americans’ access to the polls.

Mississippi, for example, revised its constitution to impose disfranchisement as a penalty only for the crimes of which African-Americans were most frequently convicted. When Virginia’s disfranchisement laws were debated at the state’s 1901-1902 Constitutional Convention, one delegate argued that felon disfranchisement would "eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this state in less than five years, so that in no single county…will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of the government."

Over 100 years later, felony disfranchisement laws remain in effect and continue to restrict the political power of communities of color and individuals of all stripes. This is not a partisan issue, it’s a democracy issue. The Washington Post, Boston Globe and Roanoke Times agree. See, C. Todd Gilbert? The right to vote is something we can all get behind.

Today, the House Judiciary Crime Subcommittee is charting a different course on the issue of gangs and youth violence. Rather than taking the easy out of more “get tough” rhetoric, the committee will be exploring an alternative approach, one rooted in prevention and intervention strategies to help stem the tide of youth violence before more crimes are committed and victims created. Only in the U.S. Congress could such an approach be considered novel or unique!

The main witness at today’s hearing will be Professor Charles Ogletree, Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard University. He will be highlighting the institute’s recent report - No More Children Left Behind Bars - which lays out a compelling case for more investments in prevention rather than the old, failed policies of the past.

Be sure to check out the ACLU’s letter to Congress in support the Youth PROMISE Act, a proactive, prevention-based approach to gangs and youth violence reduction, which will not only help to break the school-to-prison pipeline and our record-setting rates of incarceration, but will actually make our communities safer for everyone.

Could this be the wave of the future? Only time will tell…

The visit began with a tour of urban Miami, during which he saw the stark juxtaposition of affluent communities and the communities of color that were deliberatively and systematically destroyed to make room for condos, art galleries and commercial retail developments. Mr. Diène saw and heard much about Overtown. Famous performers like Count Basie and Billie Holiday were frequent visitors to Overtown and stayed there after their Miami Beach performances (since Jim Crow laws barred them from hotels on the Beach). As Mr. Diène witnessed the blight, disappearing stock of public and affordable housing, and the boarded up businesses, he heard about the efforts to destroy this once vibrant African-American community. Not only was it was dissected by I-95 (one of our tour guides pointed to a concrete support pillar for I-95 which now stands on the site of the home she grew up in), but neglect, aggressive (but unequally enforced) code enforcement practices, aggressive policing, and the fraudulent siphoning of tax dollars to private developers all were tools used to undermine the community’s infrastructure and displace its residents. Overtown activists and residents described their dedicated fight to preserve and regain control of this historic neighborhood.

On Monday, Mr. Diène conducted a series of public hearings.

The first presenters painted a picture of Miami from all perspectives of the African diaspora: Afro-Cuban, African-American, African, Haitian, and English-speaking Caribbean.

Against this backdrop, Mr. Diène heard compelling testimony from Latino and African American domestic and agricultural workers. A third generation farmworker told how the ground near Lake Apopka that she literally crawled on for decades had been contaminated by pesticides; she spoke emotionally about the resulting deaths of Lake Apopka farmworkers and how the government is pouring resources into addressing the impact that the decades of pollution have had on the alligators and birds of the region, but no resources at all are being used to address the deadly toll that the pesticides have taken on the women and men who worked the contaminated land.

A domestic worker described the inhumane treatment experienced by the many women who leave their families and home countries lured by false promises. She talked emotionally about how she and others were denied adequate food and water and forced to work 16-17 hour days with very little time off.

Prize-winning author Edwidge Danticat told the story of her uncle, Joseph Dantica, the family patriarch and a leader of his Haitian community and congregation. In 2004, at the age of 81, he was forced to flee Haiti when U.N. soldiers chose to use the rooftop of his church to wage a fire fight with gang members, who later sought retribution against him. Despite having a multiple-entry visa that allowed him to come in and out of the U.S. freely for 30 years, Joseph Dantica was detained upon his entry in the U.S. and his medicines for high blood pressure and heart problems were taken away. He died in DHS custody. (Independent medical experts attribute his death to the fact that he was not allowed to take the medications on which he had relied for years.)

Mr. Diène’s visit ended with a description of the rise of Islamophobia, and the overt (and often officially sanctioned) hate-mongering that flourishes in the U.S. during this post-9/11 era.

Most compelling and moving was the testimony from and about the strong and unyielding women and men directly impacted by racism and race discrimination in Florida - people who refuse to be victims or defeated, but instead use their own experiences to fight for the dignity of all and for the empowerment of their communities.

(Note: to ensure the privacy of the people who spoke with Mr. Diène, their stories are described here only with their express permission.)

Against this bleak backdrop, Mr. Doudou Diène, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, was welcomed by Gulf Coast residents and local and national advocates, as an independent and internationally recognized human rights monitor who could document the very real human rights abuses that continue in the Gulf Coast region. During his visit, Mr. Diène toured New Orleans, Biloxi, Miss., and other parts of the Gulf Coast and heard testimony from affected community members and advocates in issue areas ranging from criminal justice, education, the rights of immigrant and African-American low-wage workers, housing, immigration detention and deportation, and environmental justice.

As part of his tour of New Orleans, Mr. Diène was taken to the Crescent City Connection Bridge where police fired guns to block African-American residents seeking refuge from the flood waters during the storm, he also visited the Lower 9th Ward, where he met with residents and saw the devastation that the community has endured.

Mr. Diène began his day by driving by the notorious Orleans Parish Prison, where he heard about serious human rights violations chronicled in the ACLU’s report, Abandoned and Abused. During the tour and in the hearings later in the day, Mr. Diène was told the decision to not evacuate the prison before the storm resulted in some prisoners dying before officers finally came to evacuate them. He heard how guards used pepper spray to subdue prisoners, assaulted them with rifle butts, shot at them with beanbag guns — some in the back, and made them lie down on the muddy prison floor with the explanation that the guards needed to “restore order” or to prevent prisoners “escaping” rising floodwaters. Most of all, he heard about rampant racial discrimination that prisoners faced. One story is expressed very poignantly by Mr. Clarence Norman in the ACLU report to the United Nations’ Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination:

I witnessed several inmates with various medical conditions suffer from dehydration— we were forced to live off toilet water, and lie in our own waste and bodily fluids. We were drinking out of toilets because that is all we had…They used to set the food trays on the floor…I asked why they did that, and they said we were like monkeys, and that’s what you do with animals at the zoo.

Later in the day during the hearings, Mr. Diène was told about the exploitation of low-wage workers in the Gulf Coast region and the relationship between the lack of economic opportunity offered to African-American workers and the severe exploitation and abuse suffered by immigrant workers. He heard about undocumented immigrant workers being harassed and racially profiled by police, being cheated out of their wages, and suffering discrimination and health and safety abuses on the job. He heard about immigrant “guest-workers” being lured to the region with promises of good-paying, steady jobs, and paying exorbitant amounts of money to recruiters contracted by hiring companies, and once they arrive deep in debt, the workers are denied basic workplace protections.

He was told of the inherent abuses in the U.S. guest-worker program, including the lack of visa portability and workers’ reliance upon “employer-sponsors” to remain in the U.S. This creates a Catch-22 for workers, as they’re effectively unable to challenge employer abuse and exploitation without facing the threat of deportation and being forced into labor to pay off debt.
Mr. Diène was told that these factors, combined with exploitative working conditions, and fraud and abuse in recruitment and subcontracting, leave guest-workers in extremely vulnerable situations that are often compounded by physical and linguistic isolation, racial discrimination, and on occasion violence and physical abuse. He also heard that low-wage South Asian and Muslim workers are particularly vulnerable, as they face anti-immigrant hostility, employment abuse, and post-9/11-related discrimination.

It has been said that “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.” Sadly, more than 2 1/2 years after one of the most severe natural disasters to ever impact a major American city and entire region, residents are still in search of “sunlight,” or accountability for the serious and systemic human rights violations that occurred. We have yet to have a 9/11 Commission-style investigation into what happened before, during, and after Katrina; moreover, even today, people are still in desperate need of governmental assistance in returning to their homes and communities and rebuilding their lives. Mr. Diène saw and heard much during his time in the Gulf Coast, it is the hope of many residents here that the “international sunlight” that his visit and report brings will create additional pressure on the federal, state, and local governments to comply with their human rights obligations and to allow residents the opportunity to return and rebuild.