News & Commentary

SANTA ANA, Calif. – A team of legal organizations applauded the city of Laguna Beach today for agreeing to settle a lawsuit over its treatment of disabled homeless people. The settlement agreement marks a significant shift away from the criminalization of homeless people and toward recognition of their membership in the community.

A new emergency standard proposed by California’s Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board to address the threat of heat-related illness to farmworkers and other outdoor laborers is totally inadequate, and only underscores the state’s failure to provide an effective system to protect the workers on whom California’s huge agricultural industry depends, a team of legal groups charged today.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A three-judge panel today upheld the Los Angeles Police Department’s use of Special Order 40 – a decades old policy prohibiting officers from using immigration status to initiate investigations. The decision by the California Court of Appeals strikes a balance between immigrants’ rights to equal protection and officers’ duty to protect communities.

Special Rapporteur Presents Findings Before U.N. Human Rights Council

U.S.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A federal judge today expressed concern that the Los Angeles Police Department continues to be out of compliance with key provisions of a federal consent decree imposed in the wake of the Rampart corruption scandal. Judge Gary Feess stopped short of extending the federal oversight that the decree mandates, but Feess agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California that until the conditions of the decree are fully met, it is unlikely it could be legally lifted. He is expected to render a final ruling in the coming weeks.

By Ahilan Arulanantham Director of Immigrants' Rights & National Security for the ACLU of Southern California.

NEW YORK – In response to the California Supreme Court decision allowing Prop 8 to stand, four LGBT legal organizations and five other leading national LGBT groups are reminding the LGBT community that ill-timed lawsuits could set the fight for marriage back.  The groups released a new publication, “Why the ballot box and not the courts should be the next step on marriage in California.”  This publication discourages people from bringing premature lawsuits based on the federal Constitution because, without more groundwork, the U.S. Supreme Court likely is not yet ready to rule that same-sex couples cannot be barred from marriage.  The groups also revised “Make Change, Not Lawsuits,” which was released after the California Supreme Court decision ending the ban on marriage for same-sex couples in California.  This publication encourages couples who have legally married to ask friends, neighbors and institutions to honor their marriages, but discourages people from bringing lawsuits.

Advocacy Groups Vow to Return to Polls to Restore Marriage for Same-sex Couples