By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:40pm
Sigh. As if we don’t have enough divisiveness in this country, a familiar subset of Congressional Republicans are trotting out yet another discriminatory bill papered over with hollow rhetoric about “unity,” “commonality” and shared national vision, which will be the subject of a hearing in the House Constitution Subcommittee today. (Here’s the ACLU’s statement, which focuses mainly on the civil rights and immigration issues in the bill; I’m just covering the First Amendment in this post.)
By Elayne Weiss, Washington Legislative Office at 4:49pm
Rebekah Havrilla, a former Army sergeant, received no justice after she was raped by a fellow soldier while serving in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, Rebekah testified before the Senate Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee at a hearing on military sexual assault, recounting her traumatic and downright appalling time serving in a command culture that tolerated sexual assault and harassment. Her subsequent experience with the military justice system re-traumatized her after she decided to come forward and report her rapist.
Jocelyn came to the United States when she was six years old, brought by a single mom who wanted her to go to school and have a better life than she did. Today, at age 14, Jocelyn is an honors student in Alabama, where she hopes to become the first in her family to graduate from high school, and to one day become a doctor. Jocelyn is striving to live the American Dream.
By Vania Leveille, Washington Legislative Office & Elayne Weiss, Washington Legislative Office at 3:01pm
Enactment of last year's National Defense Authorization Act brought about a long overdue and welcome change on the military health care front by allowing military women and dependents to receive insurance coverage for abortion in cases of rape or incest. But the work to ensure that servicewomen's reproductive health needs are met is not nearly complete.
That's why we applaud the introduction in the Senate of the Military Access to Reproductive Care and Health (MARCH) for Military Women Act. Sponsored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and 14 other stalwart supporters of our military women and families, the bill would allow servicewomen to use their own private funds to access abortion care on military treatment facilities. Earlier in the month, Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) introduced a House companion bill, cosponsored by 40 representatives.
By Ian S. Thompson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 12:10pm
Recently, the ACLU and numerous allied coalition partners wrote to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to request that HHS issue guidance to make clear that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s prohibition on sex discrimination applies to discrimination based on gender identity and sex stereotypes. The fact that someone is transgender or does not conform to stereotypical notions of masculinity and femininity should never be a barrier to accessing health care services.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:58am
Throughout the country, many of us have rightly been long concerned about the danger of the government using taxpayer funds to covertly influence public opinion. This issue came up again recently as part of this year’s defense authorization bill, which passed the House of Representatives on Friday. Reps.
Image above: Betty Dukes with Senator Al Franken. The author, Deborah Vagins, to the immediate right, joined by coalition partners.
Over a decade ago, I had the great honor to be part of a team representing Betty Dukes, an employee at Wal-Mart who had received unfair treatment at her job and had decided to do something about it. Betty soon became the face of a large class of women who worked at Wal-Mart and faced similar types of discrimination in the workplace. These women banded together, from all across the country, to take on sex discrimination at one of the world’s largest employers—and through it all, Betty Dukes remained at the forefront fighting for justice. “In this life,” said Betty, “you have to stand up or be trampled.” The ACLU co-authored a brief before the Supreme Court, joined by a large number of civil rights groups, highlighting the gender stereotypes that the women were banding together to challenge.
By Robyn Greene, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:28am
Representative Mike Rogers (R-MI) made the argument last week that the privacy community’s significant concerns with CISPA, the privacy-busting cybersecurity bill, don’t stem from actual problems with the bill language, but rather from a misunderstanding of the bill itself. Speaking on behalf of himself and his co-sponsor, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger (D-MD), he told The Hill, “We feel that the bill clearly deals with privacy, that the checks and balances are there, but [we] know there's still a perception and we're still trying to deal with that.”
By Michelle Richardson, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 11:12am
This week is “Cybersecurity Week” in the House of Representatives, and members will vote on a handful of bills intended to protect cybersecurity — the ability to prevent and respond to threats from foreign governments, terrorists and criminals over the Internet. Some of the bills are civil-liberties-neutral but, as usual when addressing a security issue, Congress is considering a bill that overreaches — this time by allowing companies to share private and sensitive information with the government without a warrant and without much oversight.
By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:41pm
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Ala.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) unveiled a new bill this week requiring all groups that spend money independently of campaigns, candidates, or parties to influence a federal election or nomination to disclose their donors. Although we have concerns with the bill, the senators' hearts are certainly in the right place, and they should be applauded for actively soliciting input during the drafting process from interested parties on all sides of the debate.
