Posts Tagged: aclu

CA120

CA120: Curing California’s ‘extra innings’ elections

Image by Simone Hogan

While in other states, they’re packing up the campaign office in mid-November, in California races are still being won and lost through organized field programs doing ballot signature “curing” that was unheard of just a few election cycles ago.

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From the streets to the statehouse, sex trafficking defies simple solutions

Sen. Shannon Grove and fellow Republicans discuss SB 14. Photo by AP.

With January designated as National Human Trafficking Prevention Month, Capitol Weekly is examining a little-understood plague on our society – sex trafficking. Over the course of a few stories this month, we’ll explore the nuances of this horrific crime, its cultural influences and possible reform options.

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Shifting politics pushes mental health care onto the agenda

Laura Wilcox, whose shooting death in Nevada County inspired "Laura's Law." (Family photo)

Ever since Ronald Reagan signed the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act in 1967 granting people with severe mental illness greater rights and speeding the emptying of state asylums, governors have been sidestepping the issue, until now. Unlike governors before him in this state or perhaps any other, Newsom is confronting the issue of untreated mental illness.

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Law to protect reporters at demonstrations appears flawed

A journalist on the job taking video of a street protest. (Photo: wellphoto, via Shutterstock)

In late June, as protesters in Los Angeles took to the streets in opposition to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, journalists covering the demonstrations found themselves at the center of another issue of concern: the treatment of the press by police officers during protests.

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CA120: California’s mail-in voting cranks up

Dermonstrators in front of the U.S. Post Office in Torrance protesting federal funding cuts. (Photo: Vince360, via Shutterstock)

Vote-by-mail ballots have been sent to all registered voters in Amador County, with Solano reporting they will be mailing ballots today, while Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego counties — and maybe others – will be mailing next week. These counties are getting ahead of the Oct. 5 deadline for California counties to mail ballots.  In other states, meanwhile, voting has been taking place for weeks.

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Ghost of Proposition 209 haunts November ballot

Voters casting their ballots at a local precinct. (Photo: Joseph Sohm, Shutterstock)

Proposition 209, the constitutional amendment intended to prevent discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of race, ethnicity, or sex in areas like public education and contracting, was approved by California voters a generation ago. In November, they will decide whether to get rid of it.

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In California, kids in custody targeted by pepper spray

An image of a person using pepper spray. (Photo: Schnoeppl, via Shutterstock)

Pepper spray – classified and regulated as a form of tear gas – was used routinely on thousands of California children housed in state and county juvenile detention facilities, according to a recent report by the ACLU of Southern California.

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Think elections are controversial? Try the census

U.S Census workers transfer birth data to punched cards, ca. 1940. (Photo: Everett Historical, via Shutterstock)

The once-a-decade national census is still nearly two years away but it’s already generating heated discussion. Among the myriad concerns raised so far is that this survey will be the first conducted in part online. People are also expressing alarm over the inclusion of a new citizenship question, the wording for questions on race and ethnicity and the way prisoners are counted.

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