In October, the Star-Ledger editorial board sat down for a conversation with me and Newark Police Director Samuel DeMaio. In the hour long session, we discussed several topics including the possibility of reforming the internal affairs system, the use of Department of Justice monitor on the Newark Police Department, immigrants reporting crimes and use of technology, and drug related crime.
Occupy Trenton, the 24/7 protest against vast economic disparities now one month old has won its case against the state. Superior Court Judge Mary C. Jacobson has validated the free speech rights of the Trenton protesters maintaining active vigil through all weather. All the supplies confiscated from the occupiers October 14th must now be returned to them by Nov. 14. That's computers and keyboards, cameras and signs - the very elements that define their exercise of this unique protest - as well as the stuff that supplies the occupiers themselves, like medicine, coolers, food and the warm clothes taken from them.
OT's case was taken up by ACLU-NJ Legal Director Ed Barocas and cooperating attorneys Bennet Zurofsky and David Perry Davis. Barocas:
"This is a victory in our efforts to secure full free rights for Occupy Trenton. The state cannot arbitrarily create restrictive policies just because it does not like how people are using a public space."
That public space is the World War II Memorial Park directly across from the State House and within sight of legislators and visitors going in and out. Judge Jacobson granted a temporary restraining order preventing the state from enforcing some of the "rules" issued in a letter from Raymond L. Zawacki, Deputy Commissioner for Veterans Affairs, a letter protesters say was read to them but not shown to them.
The Judge granted a temporary restraining order preventing the state from enforcing some of the "rules" issued in a letter from Raymond L. Zawacki, the Deputy Commissioner for Veterans Affairs in the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, in response to the Occupy Trenton demonstration that began in Veterans Park on October 6. The ACLU suit claims the state imposed restrictions that, as lead attorney Zurofsky said, were essentially "made up on the spot" after the state saw what was happening on West State Street, didn't like it much and scrambled for a way to put an end to it.
The Judge confirms the protesters must be allowed to maintain continuous 24-hour presence at the park, but tents and other structures may not be set up.
Yesterday, we saw the results of a statewide poll that by overwhelming numbers New Jerseyans support the Jersey participants of Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Philly. Both OWS, the granddaddy of the now worldwide Occupy phenomenon and its Philadelphia counterpart have been going on for weeks. But so too has Occupy Trenton, with just a fraction of the participants of both those cities or of Occupy Albany in the capitol city of our neighboring state.
But the Trenton occupiers have also been maintaining a round-the-clock presence at the World War II Memorial across West State Street from the NJ State House. And their right to be there, to exercise their right of free speech there, is at the center of a court case (which we covered here and here) the ACLU has taken on their behalf.
We may hear Judge Mary Jacobson's ruling as early as today. Meanwhile, here's a 10-min. video I shot in the early evening light on the day Occupy Trenton went to court. I'm not our best videographer, but you'll hear from all three lawyers, Bennet Zurofsky, David Perry Davis and ACLU-NJ legal director Ed Barocas, and some of the Trenton occupiers.
Like any free speech case, though the numbers are smaller at Occupy Trenton, the implications of the State's effort to shut them down, are much, much larger. We'll bring you the Judge's decision soon as we hear.
In Trenton today, just blocks from where people protesting economic inequity are in Day 21 of their occupation, ACLU-NJ went to court to protect their freedom of speech. The occupiers were the plaintiffs before Judge Mary Jacobson. I was a couple rows behind their lawyers, ACLU-NJ Legal Director Ed Barocas, and ACLU cooperating attorneys Bennet Zurofsky and David Perry Davis.
"They're making it up!" Zurofsky said repeatedly about the restrictions the State is putting on the occupiers. Zurofsky argued that the rules the state is imposing on the occupiers didn't exist before, and were concocted when the State saw what was happening at the site, didn't like it, and is now trying to hold them to restrictions that never existed before, for anyone else.
Ed is the Legal Director for ACLU-NJ - an invaluable institution in this state. I'd recommend the 2 .pdf's he includes below the fold to anyone. A citizenry aware of its rights is a beautiful thing. Good luck today! - JG
A day after New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg threatened to make Occupy Wall Street abandon their belongings, he relented. Unfortunately, when New Jersey State Police came to do the same, Occupy Trenton wasn't so lucky.
On day seven of Occupy Trenton at the World War II Memorial plaza, the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs gave protesters new rules: protesters must attend to their property - which may not include camping or "picnicking" items - at all times.
On day eight, authorities took away protest signs, electronic equipment, laptops and coolers, aided by the State Police, who held onto the items they confiscated.
But here's one thing the protesters have that the police don't: the law - and the ACLU - on their side.
In the year since the ACLU of New Jersey sent a battery of grievances to the Department of Justice asking it to investigate the Newark Police Department, a few things have happened: the DOJ arrived, Police Director Garry McCarthy promptly left and, most recently, Director Samuel DeMaio and Chief Sheilah Coley have taken the helm of the department. Together, these facts hold promise that the city may at last enter a new phase of police accountability and reform.
Since May, the DOJ has gathered information on the ground from citizens and police officers. It has met with community groups and heard tragic testimony about the lives and families destroyed by the acts of abusive officers.
In Sept. 2010, Newark Mayor Cory Booker, NJ Governor Chris Christie, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Oprah Winfrey announced an exciting step for education reform in America: Mark Zuckerberg would be donating $100 million to improve Newark public schools, a potentially transformative opportunity. This week, nearly a year later, the ACLU-NJ filed a lawsuit on behalf of a local parents' group to find out how that donation, and the plan for what to do with it to benefit their children, came about, since the City of Newark refused to share.
The city of Newark hasn't responded with details, but the mayor of Twitter has: @CoryBooker: All grants of Zuckerberg $ have been made public. New grant announcements coming in Sept RT @bluejersey Update public on Zuckerberg's gift
The next morning, he told the Newark Star-Ledger that he had disclosed everything, and that the records don't exist. Wait, what? Below, you'll find a detailed q+a to clear up as much as possible on our end.
You're suing over the Facebook money. What does that mean? The Secondary Parent Council, a 30-year-old group of parents and grandparents of Newark schoolchildren, requested records about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's gift to the Newark Public Schools using New Jersey's Open Public Records Act (that's OPRA - not to be confused with Oprah, who hosted Mayor Booker, Zuckerberg and Governor Christie on her TV show to announce the gift Sept. 24, 2010).
What information did the parents ask Newark for? In a nutshell, letters, emails, memos and any other documentation between June 1, 2010 and April 15, 2011 (the date the request was filed) related to Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million gift supporting the Newark Public Schools.
Shouldn't they just accept the money happily, no questions asked, since it's a gift? What Mark Zuckerberg has done for Newark is incredibly generous, and we don't want to take away from the potentially staggering implications of this donation. But part of what made this gift so extraordinary was the promise from all involved - Zuckerberg, Booker and Christie - to be completely transparent with the public, and many parents and grandparents now feel sidelined and disappointed.
But at the same time, this is a gift to a public institution.
There's more ...
UPDATE 6:10pm:@CoryBooker just answered @bluejersey's Tweet: "All grants of Zuckerberg $ have been made public. New grant announcements coming in Sept RT @bluejersey Update public on Zuckerberg's gift"
So, ACLU, want to dispute that? - - Rosi
Laura Baker, a grandmother of a Newark public school student and a member of the Secondary Parent Council (which sued Newark today), explained why she wanted to go to court for the details of Facebook's $100 million donation to Newark Public Schools.
"The city talks a lot about transparency, but we haven't seen a thing," said Baker.
In police departments, as in biology, a culture can decide the difference between something that saves your life and something that poisons you.
The culture of a police department determines the extent of misconduct, and this certainly applies to Newark, NJ. After decades of efforts to bring accountability to the long-troubled Newark Police Department, the ACLU of New Jersey last year documented widespread reports of police misconduct, including hundreds of allegations of false arrests, sexual assaults, excessive force and deaths in custody. That thick record of abuse helped bring in the U.S. Department of Justice, which announced in May that it would investigate the Newark Police.
Yet just tallying up the number of incidents fails to illustrate how significantly the attitudes of police brass can reinforce unethical behavior behind the precinct doors. The only way to see the corrosive effects of a dysfunctional culture is firsthand, in the day-to-day operations - such as the ones carried out in this confidential tape recording the ACLU-NJ received.
In this 30-minute recording, a former police officer calls the police department to report that his wife, a current police officer, was sexually assaulted by another member of the force. As we hear the officer who took the complaint report the incident to supervisors, the tone of the conversations range from callous to cruel, but never concerned.
Chris Christie can star in all the "YouTube moments" - as his staff calls those taxpayer-funded propaganda video clips - he wants. But he's got nowhere near the power to attract cameras that the mayor of Newark has.
Season 2 of Sundance Channel's Peabody-Award winning documentary series Brick City finds Booker caved under Newark's financial problems and violent crime. The first episode, premiering Sunday, picks up Booker's story just before the Christie era, the mayor firing up police academy recruits.
We remember that day - October 13, 2009. Former sheriff Kim Guadagno had just said she was afraid on the streets of Newark. And in a show of solidarity, Jon Corzine ran through those streets with the mayor, and those recruits. I never liked the optics. If the message was that Newark's streets were safe, leave the recruits home. But there's another reason we remember that day; Jon Corzine ran wearing a Blue Jersey tee shirt, the workout wear of the Blue Jersey Road Runners Club. (Get a glimpse of that at the 2:48 mark).
There's no ease in Newark for Cory Booker. Nothing's simple. Facebook and Oprah money just are a Band-aid. And as Brick City 2 documents, his city's populated by as many who revile him as see him as savior. But no other city, no other mayor, has the spotlight and the cameras this guy does. And New Jersey cannot rise without Newark rising.
This is Brick City's season opener, running time: 45 minutes.
This is pretty useful info for those not wishing to be bamboozled. Flavio is a senior counsel with ACLU-NJ. - promoted by Rosi
Understandably, and often laudably, mayors and police chiefs publicly tout decreases in crime in their municipality. Unfortunately, however, officials sometimes present a rosier picture to the public by manipulating key pieces of data.
Following the New Jersey Attorney General's release today of the state's 2009 annual crime statistics, the ACLU-NJ offers a primer for citizens and journalists - and citizen journalists, for that matter - to ask the right questions and use a critical eye when reading a "crime is down" press release, and for getting up-to-date information without waiting for a state crime report that's issued ten months after the end of the calendar year.
Follow us over the jump for a quick lesson how to dig in to the details of crime statistics.
In the aftermath of Newark's infamous 1967 unrest, with stacks of citizen complaints in hand, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey made an impassioned plea to the federal courts to rein in the rampant Newark Police Department.
Decades later, after countless lawsuits and campaigns for reform failed to bring order to the department, the ACLU-NJ has taken another serious measure to address grave injustices against Newark citizens. Today we petitioned the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the Newark Police Department, building a case for the federal agency to end the entrenched patterns of police abuse.
New Jersey made history with its most famous federal intervention. The consent decree signed in 1999 to address the New Jersey State Police's racial profiling practices brought major reforms to all areas of its operations. Similar consent decrees have transformed troubled police departments in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Los Angeles and inspired officials in New Orleans and Washington, D.C. to personally petition the DOJ to intervene.
Faced with a $70 million budget gap, Mayor Cory Booker has proposed cost-cutting measures ranging from layoffs to shutting down city pools to wiping out the city's toilet paper budget.
But one important area for potential multi-million dollar savings hasn't gotten the attention it deserves: cutting the astronomical costs of police misconduct. Each year, Newark spends millions of dollars defending itself in lawsuits and paying out settlements to victims of police abuse.
The public hears little about police misconduct lawsuits because the vast majority of cases settle, and victims are typically forced to agree to remain silent as a condition of settlement. In addition, only settlements over $21,000 require approval from the city council. Public records about all settlements exist, but there is no central location, making it difficult for citizens who want to know the actual cost of police misconduct.
To uncover the true costs of police misconduct, the ACLU of New Jersey has combed court databases, meeting minutes and a battery of public records.
This is what we found: Between January 2008 and July 2010, there were 24 cases brought by citizens against the Newark Police that ended in settlement or arbitration. For the 19 cases those settlement amounts we could uncover, Newark paid out $1,041,617. That figure is only for cases that have already settled -- there are another 31 cases pending. And that same 18 months, at least 51 tort claims were filed against the police department - notices of lawsuits to come.
The cases describe nightmarish encounters with police: beatings, malicious prosecution, arrests of people videotaping police, homophobic slurs, recklessly driven police cars, and at least one sexual assault. Many of the officers named in the cases have a history of complaints against them, including one who has racked up 62 Internal Affairs complaints and another with 45.
Starting Monday, the ACLU-NJ will publish the details of a dozen such cases - settled and pending - brought by citizens against the Newark police on its website. We will release one case per day for the next twelve business days. Until now, most of these cases had never seen the light of day.
In the same 18-month period, the ACLU-NJ uncovered 11 settlements and one verdict in cases in which the Newark Police Department was sued by its own employees. In these cases, Newark had to pay a total of $2,691,503. Again, this covers only cases that have concluded; there are another nine cases filed by employees pending. The details of the cases that already settled, which the ACLU-NJ released in July, not only reveal the high financial costs of police recklessness, but the costs to officer morale and their professionalism on patrol.
When counting the costs, it's important to remember that the money paid to those who sue makes up just one part of the bill. Taxpayers also foot the enormous expense of municipal lawyers and outside law firms defending the city in these suits, as well as the legal fees the city must pay opposing counsel when it loses in court. In the case of Darren Nance, a terminated Newark Police officer who recently won a $600,000 verdict, the total cost of the city's defense, the plaintiff's legal fees and the calculation of interest owed to Nance will ultimately reach into the millions.
Make no mistake - this money comes from taxpayers. Newark doesn't have liability insurance. In fact, the settlement money comes from a general liability line in the city budget, not from the budget of the police department, so the Newark Police Department does not directly feel the financial pain of the pain its officers inflict.
And the financial costs are only the ones we can easily quantify; the steeper costs are incalculable. In the words of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, "If individuals' civil rights are compromised, public trust and confidence in the police are severely compromised." In other words, police misconduct severely jeopardizes community safety and erodes the trust officers need from the public to effectively fight crime.
Lawsuits and settlements can serve as teachable moments: they can reveal important information regarding dangerous patterns and practices in a department. Our review of lawsuits against Newark shows identical problems and behaviors spanning decades. When properly utilized, this data can provide police leadership the information they need to institute better training and accountability systems. Simply paying out damages will only lead to more abuse and more costs for the citizens of Newark.
Instead of trying to smooth over its mistakes with payouts, Newark should invest in reforms that can generate massive returns - in dollars, in lives, and in public confidence - allowing Newark to chart a path toward a new identity as a lean organization that will respect individual rights as capably as it protects public safety.
Until then, the citizens will involuntarily foot the bill for officers who violate our rights and for leaders who neglect the underlying problems that have plagued a floundering department for decades.
The Washington Post editorial board (generally not known for being the most progressive opinion page) gave him a shout-out today, citing him as the sole Republican to speak out for the sane position on religious freedom:
And Republican leaders - and we use that term loosely - have been almost universally eager to exploit the issue for political purposes. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie objected to both sides using the issue "as a political football," but he is the rare exception.
Christie, who's become a conservative icon, took a vocal stand against the xenophobia and mob mentality driving the opposition to the Park51 Muslim community center in Manhattan. More than that, he took a stand for one of our most fundamental founding rights.
In the words of our governor:
We cannot paint all of Islam with that brush. We have to bring people together.
You made New Jersey proud Monday, Governor.
Governor Christie chose to speak out, taking one for the team to remind us all what too many Americans too often forget: religious freedom doesn't belong to one faith - it belongs to everyone. No religion can claim a monopoly on the Constitution, and no race or ideology can claim exclusive access to the core values at the heart of America.
New Jersey witnessed the collapse of the towers from just across the Hudson. The Garden State grieved for the lives that were so senselessly lost, and we prayed for the commuters who would never make it home from the World Trade Center Path Station.
A cadre of fanatics sought to undermine America. They do not deserve the power to watch us undermine American values. Millions of Muslim Americans - whose religion claims as wide a range of members as every other - should not suffer for an attack that violated the country they love, too.
So we of the ACLU-NJ - as well as (we hope) everyone who believes in the First Amendment - thank you, Governor Christie, for speaking up Monday for religious freedom, for the Constitution, and for New Jersey.
Allison Peltzman works as communications specialist for ACLU-NJ, but this is what she believes no matter what her job is.
Retweet? @CoryBooker - do you have comment for @BlueJersey on ACLU charge of Newark transparency issues? - http://bit.ly/aSKiqg --- promoted by Rosi (link's corrected, thanks MJ)
Two weeks ago, amid news of layoffs in Newark, the City and its taxpayers took yet another financial hit: a high dollar verdict for a former police officer mistreated by the Newark Police.
A jury awarded Darren Nance $600,000, finding that the Newark Police had racially discriminated and retaliated against him.
Once lawyers tally up interest for this verdict, legal fees for his attorneys, plus the two private law firms hired to defend Newark, this case will likely cost millions.
Most cities rely on insurance to cover misconduct-based payouts, but Newark is deemed too high risk to qualify for a policy. Instead, these payouts come out of the pockets of Newark taxpayers. And for every case like Nance's that goes to trial, many others settle out of court behind closed doors.
It is difficult to know, therefore, the full financial impact of police misconduct on Newark taxpayers. We're also left in the dark about the details of the misconduct at the center of those cases, and whether the officers involved are sanctioned.
This is a shame because lawsuits - especially settled ones - can reveal dangerous practices in a department. And when individual officers are openly held accountable for the misconduct, it can deter others from engaging in similar acts.
To determine how much police misconduct cases cost Newark, and shed light on the underlying abuses, the ACLU of New Jersey has combed court databases, City Council minutes and other public records to find settlements.
We found that since January 2008, nine lawsuits by Newark police officers against the City were settled, with the settlements totaling $1,696,503. These cases primarily involve discrimination and retaliation.
Lawsuits from officers are just the tip of the iceberg. In that same time period, Newark awarded at least 23 payouts to citizens filing lawsuits over mistreatment ranging from false arrest to death in custody. Those, too, come with a hefty price tag - $766,617 from the 18 cases for which we have settlement amounts.
More cases are coming through the pipeline. We have identified 27 pending cases ordinary citizens have filed against the Newark Police since January 2008, and seven more filed by employees.
And there are likely others; since information about these lawsuits is not publicly disseminated or maintained in a centralized placed, we couldn't find every case filed against the Newark Police.
The costs go well beyond finances, of course. Lawsuits aside, police misconduct jeopardizes community safety and erodes the trust officers need from community members to effectively protect and serve.
But money matters, too, especially during a budget crisis. If the money Newark spends to defend and compensate for police officers' mistakes went towards reforms instead - training, technology, and resources for police - it would save money, lives, and public confidence in the long run.
The ACLU-NJ has an unwavering commitment to both government transparency and sound police practices. For the public's benefit, starting today, the ACLU-NJ will publish "the dirty dozen" of these cases on our website - representing some of the most egregious claims of discrimination, retaliation, beatings, and internal affairs corruption. We will release one a day for the next twelve business days. Many of these settlements have never before seen the light of day.
Darren Nance, however, got his day in court. He started his career as a Newark police officer in 1989 and encountered racism in the department after just a few months on the job. He spent the next seven years fighting for his rights, until the Newark Police fired him in 1996.
The jury verdict for Nance, along with these settlements, demonstrates that justice for police abuses can indeed come. But it also demonstrates a disturbing pattern: we see the abuses described in Nance's complaints from 15 years ago repeated in the settlements and pending lawsuits of today. The ACLU-NJ, which turned 50 this year, has fought the same kinds of abuses against Newark Police since our founding; change is overdue.
The only way to prevent the same mistakes, the same wounds, and the same payouts from the same stories is root out their sources. Otherwise, the citizens of Newark will continue to pay for bad apple officers who engage in abusive conduct and for managers and elected officials who fail to fix the underlying problems.
This post, about the basis for the amicus brief ACLU-NJ wrote on behalf of marriage equality in New Jersey, was written by Ed Barocas, Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union-NJ. Separate is never equal. Over the weekend, ACLU of New Jersey received the Gibbons Prize for Law and Social Justice from Garden State Equality. - promoted by Rosi Efthim
Rights that exist merely in theory or on paper are meaningless. They only mean something to people's lives if they exist in reality. For rights to mean something, they must be on paper and in practice for perpetuity.
On February 19, 2007, New Jersey's Civil Unions Law took effect. While same-sex couples and their families throughout the state were, on paper, afforded some of the rights and responsibilities previously denied them, the day also marked a sad and unfulfilling moment in the history of our state. It has gone down as the day New Jersey officially wrote back into law the notion of "separate but equal."
The past three years have served as a reminder - for some unnecessary - that separate is never equal. And the same couples that initially brought the battle for equality to the courts in 2004 have once again petitioned the New Jersey Supreme Court for their constitutional right to equality.
During the Civil Unions Commission hearings that the Legislature mandated to review the effects of the law, as well as the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings during the December 2009 run-up to the vote on marriage equality, family after family testified about the discrimination they experienced because the title given to them, "civil unions," was an inferior institution that excluded them from well-understood title of marriage.
The titles we give to our rights matter. They affect whether those rights will be respected throughout our state at hospitals, in schools, in everyday business transactions, and in practically every endeavor susceptible to human error. Many New Jerseyans have no idea what civil unions are, much less a nuanced understanding of the rights they carry.
Simply put, the Civil Unions Law has failed to fulfill the promise of equality. And children of civil union couples suffer most of all.
The most compelling stories during the Senate hearings on marriage equality in December came from school children. One student had been mercilessly bullied at school, while other children told the committee how excluded they felt when their classmates failed understand their parents' (non)marital status. When businesses and hospital personnel routinely don't understand civil unions, how can we expect our children to?
Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example."
What kind of statement does the government make when it segregates one group from all of the others? That it's acceptable to have two classes of people with two sets of rights. When the state itself segregates people, it grants the rest of society permission to do the same. Through its example, the Civil Unions Law excuses bigotry and emboldens bullies.
Last month, the ACLU-NJ submitted a friend-of-the-court brief to the New Jersey Supreme Court on behalf of ourselves and seven other leading rights organizations. It explained that, even when courts in the past initially permitted "separate but equal" institutions or systems to exist, those courts struck down, the segregated systems once evidence established that they continued to lead to different treatment. Even ardent opponents of marriage equality have conceded that denying same-sex couples the title of marriage has perpetuated these disparities.
If a system so separate were established on the basis of race, religion, ethnicity or gender, we would decry it, call it bigotry, see it as an affront to all New Jerseyans, and call it abhorrent and wrong. When it is done on the basis of sexual orientation, it is no less of an affront to all New Jerseyans, and no less abhorrent and wrong.
Hopefully, the New Jersey Supreme Court will be on the correct side of history - the side that long ago established that segregation of rights and people can never result in full equality.
Happy 50th Birthday, ACLU-NJ. - promoted by Rosi Efthim
Monday was another weird one in Trenton.
It's unusual for the ACLU to testify on the same side as groups like New Jersey Right to Life and New Jersey Coalition to Preserve and Protect Marriage. But on Monday, I had the exceptional experience of testifying alongside Marie Tasy and John Tomicki (of those respective organizations) on not just one bill, but two.
Disclosure or disaster? When censorship wears the disguise of transparency.
In an attempt to address the lack of transparency required of 501c4 organizations that run issue-advocacy ads during election season (think swift boat ads), A2595 goes too far by requiring 501 c4 and c3 organizations doing advocacy work unrelated to electoral politics to reveal their members' private information. While the ACLU-NJ understands the importance of disclosure, if passed this bill would put a stranglehold on our free speech and association rights, and create administrative nightmares for already overburdened organizations.
For example, if the League of Women Voters spent more than $2,100 to provide information in a non-partisan effort to educate voters, under A2595 it would have to disclose names and other information about any donor to the organization who gives over $300. This is true even if the League provided information simply listing the candidates in each district or describing the public questions on the ballot.
Likewise, if the American Cancer Society or Muscular Dystrophy Association wanted to give an award at their annual gala to a legislator for his or her work in their area of interest, and the organization spent over $2,100 in printing programs and invitations containing information relating to the legislator's accomplishments, that organization would have to disclose the names and personal information of any donors giving over $300.
The ACLU-NJ and NJ Right to Life, as well as other non-partisan, issue-oriented organizations across the spectrum, lined up to speak out against this bill. Even the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) objected to including 501c3 and c4 organizations in the bill. Assembly Judiciary Chair and primary sponsor of A2595 Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein decided to take the bill back to the drawing board.
'Adopting' Broad Coalitions in the Fight for Birth Parents' Privacy
After the hearing on the disclosure bill had finished, our motley crew of advocates headed over to the Assembly Human Services Committee for part two of strange bedfellows at the State House. This time, the issue was the privacy rights of birth parents who wish to maintain the confidentiality state law has protected for decades.
For at least 50 years, New Jersey law has required that adoption records be sealed. Currently, anyone seeking adoption records must meet the courts' "good cause" standard to get access (which generally requires a pressing medical need).
Impassioned adult adoptees have formed a lobby to gain access to their original birth certificates, which include the names of their birth parents. The adoptees worked with Senator Joe Vitale to develop a hot messy sausage called S799/A1406, which would open the records so that adult adoptees who requested them could receive their original birth certificates and their birth parents' names (see bullet points on problems with the bill below).
While we are sympathetic to the adult adoptees, the privacy rights of birth mothers who do not wish to have their names revealed must also carry weight.
I have received a number of anonymous letters from women explaining their situations and thanking us for our work on this issue. Several who wrote became pregnant through rape, incest and trauma, and they fear having those parts of their pasts suddenly resurrected by an unexpected knock on the door.
Yesterday morning wasn't the usual in Trenton. I had expected to testify against S1872, which creates a school voucher system in New Jersey. But instead of a hearing before the Senate Economic Growth Committee, I found myself at a rally of voucher supporters - mostly children attending private schools and their parents. From a basic strategic standpoint, they weren't the best faces for their cause, having an obvious, direct financial interest in the bill's passage - S1872 reserves 25 percent of the funding for private schools for families with students already in private schools. But I suppose they made up for their self- interest with enthusiasm.
The hearing became a cheerleading session when Senator Raymond Lesniak, the committee chairman and the bill's sponsor, expressed his outrage at the NJEA members who had filled the hearing room, while his hundreds of voucher supporters rallied outside. I understand why the situation frustrated him, but there were other, more productive, less divisive ways to solve the problem.
Instead, we all paid the price for his political theater. His sideshow cost the committee and those following the debate meaningful input from groups like the ACLU-NJ, Education Law Center, League of Women Voters, and NAACP. Instead of delivering my remarks collegially, seated at a table facing the legislators voting on the bill, I was forced to speak with my back to the legislators who were scarcely paying attention anyway. It's hard enough to hold legislators' attention in a hearing room with decorum, let alone with your back turned to them at a rally. It felt like an exercise in disrespect for the bill's opponents, the hearing process, and the constitutional analysis I had come to share.
At the end of the day Senator Lesniak said that the kids had learned a lesson in civics - but he was teaching from a bad curriculum. The students had been taken out of the classroom for the day to witness a mockery of the democratic process.
Governor Christie boldly declared in his late-March budget address that the day of reckoning had arrived. His spending plan would chart a new course, he promised.
That course plunges New Jersey into dangerous waters, with women and children going first. Christie proposes slashing all state funding for women's health and reproductive services - $7.5 million - in a move that would undermine basic health care and erode fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the law.
No budget crisis can justify the evisceration of women's rights.
That funding allows over 50 health centers across the state to screen thousands of women for potentially fatal diseases such as breast cancer and cervical cancer. The centers dispense birth control, conduct annual gynecological exams, and provide prenatal care so that all children in New Jersey enter the world with a clean bill of health, regardless of their parents' income.
And while some family planning centers do provide abortions, the procedure constitutes only a sliver of the overall services these centers provide, and moreover, none of the state funding may go toward abortion.
In reality, these centers do more to prevent abortions than to provide them. Rather than decreasing the number of abortions, closing these centers would increase the number of unwanted pregnancies, which health centers could have prevented - the primary goal. In 2009, family planning agencies helped prevent 39,872 unintended pregnancies.
Most of the 140,000 patients treated at family planning centers last year were low-income. At least 70 percent of patients relied on family planning clinics as their sole health care provider, lacking health insurance or independent means to pay for medical care.
If these women qualify for benefits under the health care reform bill, they won't kick in until 2014 - a long time to wait for a checkup. According to The Washington Post, a single mother of two making $25,000 would not be eligible for Medicaid, which extends only to people making 133 percent of the poverty line or below.
The costs quickly add up. Without insurance, birth control costs women hundreds of dollars per year, and a pap smear - one of the most important tests for potentially deadly diseases - can cost thousands. People already struggling to make ends meet will avoid the doctor if it means putting up rent money or their children's winter coats to pay for it. The governor isn't cutting the budget; he's gambling with the fate of women's health.
Without state funding next year, the centers would serve 40,000 fewer patients, leaving an already vulnerable population with even less. In the midst of a recession, these services are more critical than ever. The recently passed health care legislation may offer some assistance in the coming years, but it won't keep the lights on in the only medical centers serving neighborhoods that need them the most.
Making matters worse, the Christie administration also withdrew an application for a Medicaid waiver that would have allowed these clinics to expand services using federal dollars. Clearly, the governor's financial concerns tell only part of the story.
Denying access to health care is just another way of denying women the ability to participate fully in society. In 1992, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor acknowledged the link between reproductive rights and gender equality in an opinion that she co-authored, along with Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter.
"The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation has been facilitated," O'Connor wrote, "by their ability to control their reproductive lives."
The ACLU-NJ has fought for women's control of their lives since it began 50 years ago. We helped establish abortion rights in New Jersey before Roe v. Wade, defended a doctor in the early Seventies who was arrested under the state's obscenity laws for giving housewives information about birth control pills, battled farcical restrictions denying women tubal ligations and beat back countless restrictions on the right to abortion.
Christie's proposed cuts could make us one of the least progressive states in the country when it comes to taking care of our residents.
It will cost New Jersey far more in the long run, both for the economy and society. For every dollar spent on family-planning services, the state saves four dollars in Medicaid costs. If these cuts go through, only women wealthy enough to afford skyrocketing medical costs or those with stable jobs and good benefits will be able to see a doctor.
Adding a medical crisis to a budget crisis is no cure. It's bad public policy and a catastrophe for public health.
This piece, by ACLU-NJ Legal Director Ed Barocas, originally appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Promoted by Rosi Efthim, who in full disclosure should say she is proud that a member of her family is an ACLU-NJ board member. But that's not why we're posting this, we're doing that because Ed Barocas is right.
N.J. statute discriminates against couples, families.
In New Jersey's debate over marriage, legislators have suggested making businesses pay for discrimination that lawmakers themselves created with the 2006 civil union law. It seems that the legislature believes discrimination is only a problem when someone else practices it.
During last month's Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on marriage equality, family after family testified about discrimination they experienced, ranging from bank tellers to hospital staff, who failed to recognize their civil unions.
But rather than enact the obvious remedy - legalizing gay marriage - five Republican state senators suggested flaws could be corrected by levying "strong penalties" against businesses that fail to recognize the rights of civil union couples and their families. But neither fines nor revisions will fix the discrimination written into this law.
Legislators fashioned a segregated system of rights for one group of citizens in 2006, hoping that somehow separate would be equal. But as history shows us, separate is never equal. Many New Jerseyans have no idea what civil unions are and therefore simply fail to recognize the rights they carry.
If the legislature were to massage the civil union law rather than reform it, businesses could face fines, as well as vast, untold costs to train employees and alter data systems (most business forms recognize people only as "married" or "single"). And taxpayers would foot the multimillion-dollar bill to educate businesses and the public about a law that still would be inherently discriminatory.
Laws don't exist in a vacuum, and the titles we give to our rights affect how those rights are treated in our state, in the country and around the globe. And children of civil union couples suffer most of all.
The most compelling testimony during the Senate hearing came from a student who had been mercilessly bullied at school and from other children who felt like outsiders when they couldn't make their classmates understand their parents' nonmarital status. How can kids on the playground be expected to understand civil unions when businesses and hospital personnel don't get it?
Justice Louis Brandeis said, "Our government is the potent, the omnipotent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example."
What is the legislature teaching by segregating one group from all others? That it's acceptable to have two classes of people with two sets of rights. When the state itself segregates people, it grants the rest of society permission to do the same. Through its example, the legislature excuses bigotry and emboldens bullies.
Senators, the time has come to right this wrong rather than heap the blame and cost of your own discriminatory decision upon others.
Ed Barocas (info@aclu-nj.org) is the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
