HOUSTON – Reacting to the addition of abortion regulation bills to the special session agenda today by Gov. Rick Perry, ACLU of Texas Executive Director Terri Burke said: “These bills added by Gov. Perry are so bad the legislature followed its rules and didn’t want to even vote on them during the regular session. The rules of a regular session are there to protect us from extremes. If bills don’t make it, democracy wins. The citizens of Texas win. None of these anti-abortion bills even made it to the floor for debate.  The special session is going to cost more than $1 million in taxpayer money. For $1 million, lawmakers should be talking about the primary thing Texans are most concerned about: Educating our children.”

During a regular session of the Texas legislature, there’s a parliamentary rule that helps protect citizens from extremist views that could become law. The rule says that the Senate needs two-thirds of the chamber to approve bringing a bill up for a vote. Four anti-abortion bills, now attached to an omnibus abortion bill in the special session, didn’t even make it to the floor for a vote or for debate.

That’s how bad they are. And that’s why their introduction into the special session should be offensive to Texans.

Take action: Don’t mess with Texas women.

The bills are designed to chip away at a woman’s right to make her own medical decisions—highly personal decisions that should be between a woman and her physician, not decided by Texas legislators whose only qualifications are votes, not medical degrees.

Proponents of the bills will tell you they’re about promoting safety and science. They’re not.
This is about controlling women’s health and closing abortion clinics. It’s about denying rights to women—rights that have been handed down by the highest court in the land.

They must think we’re stupid. Contact your legislators and tell them this has to stop.

Tell legislators: Don’t mess with Texas women.

Spread the word on Facebook and Twitter

Tweet a picture or a message Tweet #DMWTXwomen

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WHAT:                 Staff and board members of the ACLU of Texas will be available to analyze the forthcoming U.S. Supreme Court decision on United States v. Windsor and its implications for Texas families. The case is a challenge to Section 3 of the so-called “Defense of Marriage Act,” which says that even when a lesbian or gay couple is legally married under state law, the federal government has to treat them as unmarried and cannot grant them any of the federal benefits, protections, and responsibilities of marriage.

WHO:                   The ACLU co-represents Edie Windsor in the case. Windsor was forced to pay more than $363,000 in federal estate taxes after her beloved spouse, Thea Spyer, died in 2009. Edie and Thea were together for 44 years; after a decades-long engagement, they were finally able to legally marry two years before Thea’s death. Edie’s tax bill would have been zero if Thea had been Theo.

WHEN:                 Ruling expected on June 11, 18, or the week of 25.

WHERE:               The ACLU of Texas will have representatives available in Austin, Dallas, and Houston. If media is interested in talking to lesbian or gay couples, the ACLU will also be able to recommend individuals in selected urban centers.

Nationwide, the American Civil Liberties Union and its affiliates bring more LGBT rights cases and advocacy initiatives than any other organization. The ACLU filed the first freedom to marry case in the country, in 1970.

The ACLU of Texas is the state’s preeminent civil rights organization, at the forefront in Texas since 1938. The 11th largest ACLU affiliate in the United States, the ACLU of Texas works in the courts, the legislature, and through public education to protect civil rights and individual liberty.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Tom Hargis, Director of Communications, ACLU of Texas, 832.291.4776, media@aclutx.org

HOUSTON – On Thursday the ACLU of Texas targeted 15 local law-enforcement agencies in 12 counties for racially biased drug enforcement, citing arrests of blacks at far greater rates than whites. The counties, which stretch north and south across East Texas into the state’s two most populous centers, topped lists for racial disparity in marijuana-possession arrests, according to a study released this week by the ACLU. Letters to officials in the 12 counties demand changes in law enforcement policies and practices.

“The report by the ACLU shows that racism remains alive, well, and entrenched in Texas,” said Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas. “This data is clear evidence that police target blacks for marijuana use. And nowhere in Texas is this practice as prevalent as in a corridor stretching from Houston, up through East Texas, into the Dallas-Fort Worth area.”

Blacks and whites use marijuana at roughly equal rates.  But the report, Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests, shows that blacks are 2.3 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession in Texas.

In the 12 counties targeted by the ACLU, blacks were much more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession – with the worst offenders, the Van Zandt and Cooke County Sheriff’s Departments, arresting blacks at more than 20 times the rate of whites. Van Zandt and Cooke are the first- and fourth-worst offenders in the country, according to the report.

“We’re putting county sheriffs and police chiefs on notice of the egregious racial disparities in their arrest rates,” said Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director at the ACLU of Texas. “These departments are enforcing drug laws along color lines and that is intolerable. Law enforcement agencies must investigate the causes of these shocking racial disparities and take steps to correct the problem.”

The ACLU report is the first ever to examine state and county marijuana arrest rates nationally by race. The findings show that while there were pronounced racial disparities in marijuana arrests 10 years ago, they have grown significantly worse nationwide in the last decade.

In 2010, Texas was second in the nation in number of marijuana-possession arrests, which made up more than 53 percent of all drug arrests in the state. In 2010 blacks made up 12.2 percent of the Texas population but accounted for more than a quarter of arrests for marijuana possession.

“The aggressive policing of marijuana is time-consuming, costly, racially biased, and doesn’t work,” said Ezekiel Edwards, director of the Criminal Law Reform Project at the ACLU and one of the primary authors of the report. “These arrests have a significant detrimental impact on people’s lives, as well as on the communities in which they live.”

Texas counties under investigation by the ACLU:

Other key findings from the report:

• Five of the nation’s top 15 counties for highest black arrest rates for marijuana possession are in Texas—Chambers (2nd), Cooke (3rd), Kleberg (7th), Hopkins (9th), and Van Zandt (13th).
• Harris County ranks fourth in the nation for number of blacks arrested for marijuana possession, while Dallas County is among the country’s top 25.

The letters to law enforcement, along with additional Texas-related information, are available at http://www.aclutx.org/racially-biased-arrests.

The full report is available at http://www.aclu.org/blog/racial-justice-criminal-law-reform/new-report-billions-dollars-wasted-racially-biased-marijuana.

Sources for the ACLU report include the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program Data and the U.S. Census Data.

Tell us how overly aggressive enforcement of drug laws is affecting your community.

A new report from the ACLU shows that marijuana is the drug of choice for police departments nationwide—with serious consequences for Texas and our communities of color. Texas ranks second in the nation in total arrests for marijuana possession, wasting nearly $300 million in state taxpayer money on a failed “War on Drugs.” Even more troublesome: Marijuana enforcement is a vehicle for law enforcement to target communities of color.

Blacks and whites use marijuana at the same rate

Blacks and whites use marijuana at roughly equal rates, yet blacks are almost four times more likely to be arrested across the nation for marijuana possession. According to the ACLU’s report, the significant increase in marijuana arrest rates over the last 10 years is largely due to the steep rise in arrests of blacks. Between 1995 and 2010, the number of marijuana arrests in this country increased by 51%.

Statewide, blacks are 2.3 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession

In 2010 blacks made up 12.2 percent of the Texas population but accounted for more than a quarter of arrests for marijuana possession.

A corridor of racial targeting

The worst-offending Texas counties for racial disparity in marijuana enforcement stretch across East Texas and center around the state’s most populous centers (Houston and Dallas). Texas is the only state with two counties appearing in the nation’s top five for racial disparity—with Van Zandt at number one and Cooke at number four.

In these counties with largest disparities in arrests by rate, blacks more likely to be arrested than whites.

THE REPORT

View the full ACLU report, the first ever to examine state and county marijuana arrest rates nationally by race.

TEXAS BY THE NUMBERS

Find out why Texas is second in the nation in total arrests for marijuana possession.

PRESS RELEASE

News update: ACLU Targets East Texas Law Enforcement Agencies for Racial Bias in Marijuana Arrests

LETTERS TO LAW ENFORCEMENT

The ACLU of Texas wrote letters to officials in the 12 counties with the worst racial disparity in marijuana-possession arrests demanding changes in law enforcement policies and practices.

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Do you know someone in East Texas, Houston or Dallas? Tell them about the report on Facebook and Twitter.

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Episodes air Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. on KPFT 90.1 FM.

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HOUSTON – Prior to the House’s preliminary vote on SB 215, the Higher Education Coordinating Board Sunset Bill, Rep. Matt Krause (R-Fort Worth) successfully added an amendment that would require state colleges and universities to recognize and subsidize campus clubs and organizations that discriminate. The amendment is a revival of Krause’s failed HB 360.

The following quote can be attributed to Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas:

“This amendment moves Texas backwards to the days when opportunities at our state universities were closed to women, people of color, Jews, or just about anybody who wasn’t a straight white male. If Representative Krause has his way, officially recognized campus clubs will once again be able to turn away students for discriminatory reasons. And to add insult to injury, they’ll be able to use taxpayer money to do it.”

The following quote can be attributed to Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director of the ACLU of Texas:

“College and university students have every right to hold discriminatory views and to organize clubs that exclude people based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or political affiliation, but the First Amendment doesn’t give them the right to demand taxpayer funding to pay for it. This amendment is not about free association and free expression. It’s about excluding people.”