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From: [k--d--e] at [herodotus.cs.uiuc.edu] (Carl M. Kadie)
Subject: ACLU's "Campaign for the Bill of Rights '92"
Campaign for the Bill of Rights '92
Published by the American Civil Liberties Union
Nadine Strossen/President
Ira Glasser/Executive Director
132 West 43rd Street
New York, NY 10036
(212) 944-9800 ext. 408
[Electronically distributed with the permission of the ACLU]
FOUR PLANKS * * * * * * * American Civil Liberties Union
* At every inauguration since the founding of this country, the
newly-elected President has sworn to "preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution of the United States." But the Constitution and the Bill
of Rights are not self-enforcing. Since its founding in 1920, the
American Civil Liberties Union has dedicated itself to turning that
18th-century document into a living reality for all those who find
themselves within our country's borders, or under our government's
jurisdiction.
The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonpartisan organization --
neither liberal nor conservative, Democratic nor Republican. We have
never endorsed or opposed a candidate for elected office. But four
years ago, the American Civil Liberties Union was thrust into the
Presidential campaign when then-candidate George Bush sought political
advantage by accusing his opponent, Michael Dukakis, of being "a
card-carrying member of the ACLU," and by grossly misrepresenting the
Union's work.
==================================
| I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the
| President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability,
| preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
|
| - Presidential Oath of Office
==================================
The truth is that the American Civil Liberties Union has always stood
for the most traditional American values: Liberty, Justice and Freedom
for All. Freedom of speech and association, religious liberty,
privacy and personal autonomy, equal justice and due process of law --
these are the principles that animated and guided our nation's
founders and are set forth in the Bill of Rights.
We believe that adherence to the spirit of those original American
principles will make us a stronger and more just nation, and that a
promise to make those principles real for all Americans ought to be a
part of every political platform.
A new era has arrived. The revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe and
the end of the Cold War have led the American people to shift their
focus away from the international problems that consumed so much of
our country's resources and attention over the past 50 years. Recent
events in Los Angeles brought into sharp relief the enormous domestic
challenges we face. The United States cannot afford to turn its back
on these problems any longer.
The American Civil Liberties Union and its nearly 300,000 members call
upon both major parties and all Presidential candidates to adopt these
four planks:
ONE -- A NATIONAL CAMPAIGN AGAINST BIGOTRY AND RACISM
==================================
| * The poverty rate for African Americans is _three times_ that for
| whites, and _nearly half of all black children_ are born into poverty.
|
| * Educational opportunity is brutally unequal -- in Alabama, rich,
| predominately white school districts spend $2,483 a year per student
| while poor black districts have only $165 to spend.
==================================
Almost 25 years ago, in the aftermath of a long hot summer of
destructive urban riots, the Kerner Commission concluded that "[O]ur
nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white --
separate and unequal." The Commission urged the country "to press for
a national resolution," but its urgings have still not been heeded.
Although the crude legal barriers to equal opportunity that supported
racism for nearly a century after the end of the Civil War were torn
down many years ago, what author and educator Jonathan Kozol has
called "savage inequalities" are more deeply entrenched than ever --
in housing, education, employment, health care and the criminal
justice system. These inequalities have engendered, particularly in
the young among racial minorities, feelings of great despair, rage and
hopelessness. If something is not done to address the severe
disparities that permeate every institution in our country, Los
Angeles is a glimpse of what our future will be.
==================================
| * The American Medical Association concluded recently that race is the
| main factor in unequal access to health care. Of the more than 30
| million people who have no health insurance, a disproportionate number
| are not white.
|
| * Institutional racism permeates our criminal justice system. Police
| brutality is routine in minority communities. Although blacks are
| only 12 percent of drug-users, they are 38 percent of those arrested
| for drug offenses. One out of every four young black men is in prison,
| on parole or on probation more than are in college.
==================================
These are not "black problems" for "Black America" or other racial
minorities to solve all by themselves. They are problems for all of
us, problems that affect and will increasingly affect all our lives.
They are _national_ problems requiring _national_ solutions.
We have previously lacked the will to address these problems in a
serious way. Now, today, we must summon the will. What is required is
the kind of immense, comprehensive commitment of the kind we made when
we established the Marshall Plan to reconstruct postwar Europe. For us
to make such a commitment, we must recapture the sense of moral
urgency that prevailed 30 years ago when we demolished the edifice of
legal segregation.
For those who "have" in our society, this is not a matter of charity
but of self-interest. If violence overtakes the nation, it will
consume all of us; none of us will be safe. And if a significant
segment of our population remains exiled from the realm of
opportunity, we will not be able to compete economically as a nation.
Our precious liberties and democratic way of life cannot survive if we
do not finally fulfill the promises made by the post-Civil War
amendments to the Constitution: the promise of _full_ equality.
The history of racism in America is much longer than the history of
our efforts to eradicate it. But we must not lose heart. We must build
a society in which access to the basic necessities of life -- _and to
hope_ -- does not depend on skin color.
TWO -- CONSTITUTIONAL PROTECTION FOR A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE
==================================
| * Since the Supreme Court's 1989 decision in the _Webster_ case,
| anti-choice legislators across the country have introduced more than
| 750 laws restricting womens' right to abortion. Many of these laws
| would recriminalize most abortions.
|
| * If the Supreme Court's 1973 decision in _Roe v. Wade_ is reversed,
| 14 million women of childbearing age in 11 states will be in imminent
| danger of losing their fundamental right to make personal decisions
| about whether and when to bear a child. These are states in which the
| governors and state legislators are strongly anti-choice.
|
| * If abortion is recriminalize, it is estimated that thousands of
| women will require hospital treatment for botched, illegal abortions,
| and 1,000 will die during the first year. Many who survive will suffer
| lifelong medical problems, including infertility.
==================================
Since the Supreme Court's 1989 decision in the _Webster_ case, anti-choice
legislators across the country have introduced hundreds of laws making
access to safe medical care increasingly difficult: mandatory waiting
periods, parental notification/consent laws, laws that compel physicians
to give government-prescribed anti-abortion lectures, or that require
married women to notify their husbands of their decision to have an
abortion. Several states have enacted laws recriminalizing most
abortions, thus turning back the clock to the days before _Roe v. Wade_
when physicians, and sometimes patients, faced jail for performing or
obtaining an abortion. Today, the Supreme Court is poised to take away
a woman's fundamental right to make reproductive choices by further
restricting access to abortion or even by reversing _Roe_.
Womens' right to control their reproductive system is essential to
their full and equal participation in society. Without that control,
women are not free to determine their own lives, to define for
themselves the role through which they will contribute to society --
as mothers, workers, artists, scientists. For 20 years,
self-determination for American women has been possible, in part,
through the availability of safe and legal abortions. For the
majority, going back to the dark days of back alley butchering, is
simply unthinkable.
Attitudes towards abortion are rooted in theological beliefs about the
nature of the fetus from the earliest moments of conception. Not
surprisingly, religious groups view the issue differently. While some
religions teach that abortion is a sin and tantamount to murder,
others teach that each woman must be free to make her own moral and
ethical choices. Bans on abortion, or laws that restrict access to
abortion, force all Americans by law to conform to particular
religious beliefs that not everyone shares.
If _Roe v. Wade_ is overturned, the constitutional right to abortion
will not be the only casualty. Under _Roe_, "freedom of personal
choice in matters of marriage and family life" is a privacy right that
is constitutionally protected. _Roe_ has been the foundation upon
which other freedoms have been recognized, including the right to be
free from forced sterilization or court-ordered abortion. If _Roe_
goes, so go these other rights.
The Freedom of Choice Act elegantly and simply reaffirms a woman's
right to choose to end a pregnancy prior to fetal viability. Congress
must pass this legislation, and it must be signed into law, _with no
weakening amendments_.
THREE -- A REALISTIC APPROACH TO CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
==================================
| * The United States now leads the world in incarceration. With more
| than one million people behind parts, we imprison 426 per 100,000
| people compared to South Africa, the runner-up with 333.
|
| * Harsh, mandatory sentencing laws have caused our prison population
| to double in the past decade. Congress has passed 60 of these laws,
| mainly for drug offenses. As a result, more than half the inmates in
| the federal prison system are drug offenders, and most of them
| committed non-violent crimes. The cost: $20 billion a year. At the
| same time, only four percent of the estimated 6.5 million Americans
| who are addicted to drugs have access to publicly-funded treatment
| programs.
|
| * The prison explosion is placing enormous burdens on state budgets.
| It is estimated that states will require an extra $35 billion to build
| and operate prisons over the next five years just to keep up with the
| incarceration rate.
==================================
Fear of violent crime grips the citizenry, from our largest urban
centers to our rural areas. For too long, our elected leaders have
played upon that fear, especially during election years. "If only we
could unshackle the police, impose longer sentences, abolish parole
and build more prisons, crime could be controlled," they proclaim. But
while such "solutions may win votes, they have little, if any, impact
on the crime rate. Thousands of new laws have increased sentences,
expanded the use of the death penalty and eroded civil liberties. Yet
these measures have failed: Instead of making us crime free, they have
just made us less free.
The truth is there is no significant correlation between building
prisons and controlling crime. The reasons are simple. First, crime
rates correlate, not with the rate of imprisonment, but with the
proportion of young people in the population and the percentage of
those young people who are unemployed, uneducated and face a bleak
future.
Second, most violent criminals do not even reach the criminal justice
system. More than 35 million serious crimes are committed each year in
the U.S., but only about three million result in arrest, and only
several hundred thousand in imprisonment. Sentencing policies address
the wrong end -- and only one tiny piece -- of the problem. The cry
for more prisons and harsher sentences is used by some politicians to
divert an anxious public's attention -- and public resources -- away
from the real problem.
It's time to get serious about crime and punishment. Every community
must have adequate police services. Our courts must have the capacity
to deliver justice _and_ swift and certain punishment when warranted.
Prison space must be reserved for truly violent offenders; for
nonviolent offenders, the use of alternative sanctions must be
expanded.
Today, many in the law enforcement community agree that constitutional
rights are no impediment to effective law enforcement, so we must stop
scapegoating the Constitution. More and more law enforcers also agree
that we must stop squandering limited resources on ineffective
measures and respond instead to the social problems that are the
breeding grounds of crime: joblessness, broken families, poor
education, inadequate housing. We must stop treating drug abuse as a
crime and treat it, instead, as the public health problem it is.
It has become fashionable in some circles to claim that the social
programs of the 1960s and '70s "didn't work." What is crystal clear
today is that the crime control policies of the 1980s have not worked.
New approaches, based on new premises, are needed.
FOUR -- A BILL OF RIGHTS FOR ALL WORKING PEOPLE
The largest group of forgotten people in this country consists of
non-unionized, private sector employees -- 80 percent of the American
workforce. Victims of the l9th century "employment-at-will doctrine,
they can be fired for any reason, or for no reason at all. They can be
subjected to tests and searches that are degrading and unrelated to
the work they were hired to perform. They can be punished for engaging
in legal activities in the privacy of their own homes. Employees need
and deserve protection against such unfair and arbitrary denials of
their rights, which often leads to widespread human suffering.
Researchers have found a strong connection between job loss and
alcoholism, mental illness and even suicide.
==================================
| * In Pennsylvania, an employee was fired because he pointed out
| serious safety defects in his employer's products. At least 200,000
| Americans are unjustly fired every year.
|
| * In California, a job applicant was denied a job because he reused to
| answer questions about his sex life on a "psychological test." At
| least two million job applicants are required to take such tests ever
| year.
|
| * In Indiana, a worker was fired because she smoked cigarettes in her
| own home. At least 6,000 American companies now punish employees for
| private behavior, such as drinking any alcohol or riding a motorcycle.
==================================
American institutions have, thus far, failed to address the problem of
workplace rights. The Bill of Rights does not apply to privately-owned
businesses, and our courts have been unwilling to offer legal
protection to private sector employees. While federal and state
legislation has addressed the problem of job discrimination based on
race, gender, religion and disability, other important issues like
privacy, free speech and due process have not been treated seriously.
Organized labor has traditionally been the chief defender of people's
rights at work. But the percentage of American workers represented by
unions has declined to only 16 percent, leaving the vast majority of
workers unprotected.
Although many employers argue that expanding legal rights in the workplace
would make American industry less competitive, the evidence shows
otherwise. The success of companies that have adopted enlightened
personnel policies confirms that people work more productively in
environments where their rights are respected.
American works need their own Bill of Rights that provides for freedom
of speech, the right to organize, the right to privacy, fair and equal
treatment and legal protection.
* *
As we approach the millennium, our country faces a time of both danger
and opportunity. If we do not confront the social disintegration that
has been worsened during the past decade, we are looking at a future
of violence and repression that will ensnare all of us in its web. If
we do not become responsive to the demands of _all_ our citizens
--women, men, minorities, artists and working people of every sexual
orientation--for liberty and respect, opportunity and hope, the United
States will cease to be an inspiring beacon of freedom, creativity,
enlightenment and great achievement, and will instead become a symbol
of despair, destructiveness and decline.
Let us look for guidance to the original principles upon which this
nation was founded: the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
* SUPPORT THE BILL OF RIGHTS PLANKS *
Please complete the message below and mail this brochure to the
delegation, from your state, to your political party's National
Convention. You can obtain that address from:
REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE
310 First Street, S.E. 430 South Capitol Street, S.E.
Washington. DC 20003 Washington, DC 20003
(202) 863-8550 (202) 863-8000
GET MY MESSAGE!
I am a registered ___________. I urge you to "Campaign for the Bill of
Rights" in this Presidential election year by supporting inclusion of
the four planks of the American Civil Liberties Union in our party's
platform.
TO: The _________ delegation to the __________ Party National Convention.
(my state) (Democratic/Republican)
FROM: ________________________
(my name in print)
My signature ___________________
My address _________________________________________________