Posts Tagged: aclu

Think elections are controversial? Try the census

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

by LISA RENNER posted 06.07.2018

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.

Bills target police conduct, use of force

Sacramento police officers preparing for protests over the shooting of Stephon Clark. (Photo: Kevin Cortopassi, Flickr Creative Commons)

by DAVE KEMPA posted 04.17.2018

The recent police killing of an unarmed black Sacramento man has left protesters and local politicians demanding revisions to California’s Peace Officer’s Bill of Rights — the decades-old protocol for officers facing disciplinary investigation. But state lawmakers, despite the national attention directed at the shooting of 22-year-old Stephon Clark, have not introduced legislation or even made reference to the 1976 law, known as the POBR.

“He’s both popular and vulnerable,” said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. in an interview with the Times. “On the one hand, he’s a very skilled politician, very popular in many of the communities in the county and a known reformer and progressive. At the same time, he has tremendous flaws in managerial areas that have caused all kinds of headaches in the department.”