News & Commentary

Opinion Piece by Executive Director, Gary Brunk -- Lawrence Journal World, August 7, 2013 All Americans should be able to vote — the most basic right in our democracy — without having to jump through a bureaucratic maze. Yet Secretary of State Kris Kobach persists in his ongoing effort to make voting more difficult by suggesting a “fix” to a law he authored that requires voters to document citizenship.Kobach proposes to create a two-tiered voting system, where some voters would be eligible to vote in federal elections but not in state and local elections (“Kobach considering plan that could produce two kinds of voters,” Journal-World, July 31).His plan violates the intent of the National Voter Registration Act, would be burdensome to implement and costly to taxpayers, and harkens back to a regrettable history of voter suppression in the United States.The very purpose of the National Voter Registration Act is to make registering to vote easy and convenient. Kobach’s proposal does the exact opposite by introducing more complexity into an already confusing voting system. Mistakes are bound to happen. You don’t have to look any farther than the 12,000-plus Kansans whose registrations are in suspense to know that there are going to be some who do everything right but still end up disfranchised because of an unnecessarily complicated system.Furthermore, implementing Kobach’s proposal would be unnecessarily burdensome to local election administrators and would add to the cost of keeping, maintaining, and verifying voter registration lists throughout the state. It would also require printing two separate ballots, further increasing costs.Dual registration systems have a long and sad history in the U.S. The last state to maintain one was Mississippi. It adopted its dual registration system and poll taxes in the 1890 Mississippi Constitution as a way to make registration more complicated, with the express purpose of keeping as many African-Americans and poor people from registering to vote as possible. By the 1980s, the dual registration system was still in effect and still had its original intended purpose of disproportionately disfranchising Black voters, leading a federal court to declare that the system violated the Voting Rights Act.In advancing his latest proposal Mr. Kobach wants to climb out of a box of his own making: an unduly complicated voting system largely of his design that discourages participation in our electoral process.We should instead strengthen our democracy by making the voting system more transparent and simple.— Gary Brunk is a Lawrence resident and executive director of the ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri. 

In a recent opinion piece, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach defended his track record as a national proponent of anti-immigrant laws. He asserted that the anti-immigrant laws he’s authored and espoused across the country have done “remarkably well” in court. A review of these cases shows otherwise. Indeed, just last week, his record suffered a serious blow when the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and a unanimous three-judge panel of the Third Circuit struck down anti-immigrant ordinances he authored in Farmer’s Branch, Texas and Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Although a divided Eighth Circuit panel recently upheld another of these ordinances in Fremont, Neb., the clear trend is away from his anti-immigrant approach.In his opinion piece, he claimed a “score” of “2 wins — 0 losses — 2 draws,” appearing essentially undefeated. Even apart from the Farmers Branch and Hazleton decisions, the anti-immigrant policies he promotes have been litigated many times, far more than the four court cases he discusses. For example, he conveniently excludes several failed lawsuits he brought challenging laws that promote immigrant integration, such as Kansas’ law allowing in-state college tuition for all Kansas high school graduates. After a federal appeals court dismissed his lawsuit here, he filed a similar one against California’s in-state tuition law, which the California Supreme Court rejected unanimously. He raises the issue year after year in the Legislature and every time, he scores a loss. This, in the Republican controlled Legislature in his home state.For the cases he doesn’t ignore, he obscures the results. For example, he calls the Supreme Court decision overturning provisions of SB 1070, Arizona’s infamous anti-immigrant law — the hallmark of his career — a “draw” even though the Court struck down three of the four sections of the law that it reviewed.Mr. Kobach would have us believe that the single provision the court allowed was the only one that mattered. In the SB 1070 case, the Supreme Court struck down warrantless arrests of undocumented individuals, the criminalization under state law of work by the undocumented and criminal punishments for immigrants who fail to carry immigration papers at all times. And, the court limited the scope of the one provision it permitted, known as “show me your papers,” making it clear that the police cannot detain individuals just to inquire about immigration status. In other words, much of the anti-immigrant law that put Arizona in the national spotlight has now been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.Similarly, Mr. Kobach categorized the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Alabama’s HB 56 as a “draw” even though it too rebuked his fundamental approach. The court said, “We are convinced that Alabama has crafted a calculated policy of expulsion, seeking to make the lives of unlawfully present aliens so difficult as to force them to retreat from the state.” This is Mr. Kobach’s underlying theory of driving the undocumented to “self-deport,” which the court determined is an unconstitutional, “thinly veiled attempt to regulate immigration”— a power held solely by the federal government.Mr. Kobach’s faulty legal reasoning has brought only harm to communities that have relied on it. Yet he repeatedly asks Kansans to trust his expert legal opinion on controversial matters, whether it’s defending the voter identification law he authored, or advocating for more restrictive laws against immigrants. Kansans deserve better. We should trust our own instincts instead, supporting common sense immigration reform and integrating immigrants through sound policy.

The ACLU of Kansas and Western Missouri is proud to launch the 4th Edition of the Kansas/Missouri LGBT Rights Handbook. The primary purpose of the handbook is simply to provide information.  Through the process of writing and updating it, we realize that, while progress is being made a great deal of work lies ahead.  The ACLU will continue participating in this crucial struggle to secure the civil rights and civil liberties of the LGBT community.4th Edition LGBT Handbook

When Lawrence Police Chief Khatib appeared before the City Commission to request approval for using grant funds to install permanent surveillance cameras along Massachusetts Street in Lawrence, the ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri and allies were there to raise concerns about the implications for loss of privacy and civil liberties that resulted in the Commission tabling the request and directed the Chief Khatib to develop guidelines for the use of cameras before taking further action.In the following months the ACLU organized a well attended public forum on the use of surveillance cameras and mobilized members to attend a meeting called by the Police Chief to review his draft of proposed guidelines.We have now learned that Chief Khatib, responding to concerns raised at these events, has decided to not take any further steps towards installing surveillance cameras.  This issue could well come up again in the future, but for the time being the combination of community participation and a police chief open to hearing their concerns has netted a significant victory for civil liberties in Lawrence.

This summer, the ACLU of Kansas & Western Missouri is collecting and reviewing the inmate mail policies in place in Kansas’ jails.  In May, Summer Law Clerk Janet Kearney sent open records requests to the jails in Kansas’s twenty largest counties asking for copies of the jails’ mail policies, inmate handbooks, and grievance procedures.  We have now received responses from most of the jails.On June 5, 2013, the ACLU received the requested policies from the Riley County Jail in Manhattan, Kansas.  The jail’s Inmate Handbook provides, in pertinent part, that “[n]ewspapers and magazines are also not allowed in the facility and will be placed in your property.”On June 10, 2013, the ACLU received the requested policies from the Labette County Jail in Oswego, Kansas.  The Labette County Jail’s policy on “Inmate Correspondence” provides, in pertinent part, that “[n]ewspapers and or magazines are also not allowed.  No newspaper and/or magazine clippings, or computer generated graphics or e-mails will be allowed.”Banning newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals from the jail violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Because that policy is a blatant violation of the First Amendment right of prisoners to receive information, Legal Director Doug Bonney immediately sent letters to Riley County Police Department Director Brad Schoen and Labette County Counselor Fred W. Johnson demanding that the jails drop the unconstitutional ban on newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals by Friday, June 14, 2013, or risk being sued by the ACLU.On June 13, 2013, the Assistant Director of the Riley County Police Department, which operates the jail, advised the ACLU that the Department has removed the language from its Inmate Handbook “that effectively banned the possession of newspapers and magazines by inmates of the Riley County Jail.” . Riley County Jail Newspaper Ban - Demand Letter

ACLU

The City of Anthony, KS, is set to host the Muddy Water Music Festival this weekend.  In the run up to approving the permits for the Festival, the City Commission got a bee in its bonnet about dirty words used by bands that perform at the Festival.  So, at the City Commission’s regular meeting on May 6, 2013, the Commissioners approved a motion that, among other things, made granting the permit for the Festival contingent on “the artists play[ing] with reserved language in regards to foul words.” By adopting that motion, the Commission established an unconstitutional condition for the grant of the permit and thus violated the First Amendment’s Speech Clause.  The Commission’s act proves the wisdom of the Supreme Court’s observation that “the risks of freewheeling censorship are formidable.” Southeastern Promotions, Ltd. v. Conrad, 420 U.S. 546, 559 (1975). Because of the clear unconstitutionality of the City’s action and of its ordinance purporting to outlaw “the use of profane or indecent language” where beer is sold, the ACLU today sent the a letter to the City Administrator demanding that the City repeal the unconstitutional ordinance and assure the Festival’s sponsors and the holder of the CMB license that the City will not enforce the ordinance or the unconstitutional condition set by the Commission in granting the permit for the Festival.Letter to Anthony, KS News Coverage

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