Our policy team is a constant presence in Salem and local municipalities to pass bills that advance or defend civil liberties and civil rights, and to defeat those that do not. In addition to our mission to defend and advance civil liberties and civil rights, we are committed to:
At the request of Mike Schrunk, the District Attorney for Multnomah County, Representative Jeff Barker (D-Aloha) introduced HB 4022, which set up a new system of civil commitment for heroin users.
Annual JTTF Report Still Lacks Important Details
March 27, 2013 - ACLU of Oregon Executive Director David Fidanque testified before Portland City Council urging them to reject the recently released Portland Police Bureau's (PPB) Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) Report. The report contains few details , "... not enough detail to truly inform the public of the nature of PPB’s participation on the JTTF – certainly not enough to compel anyone to point to Portland as a model of transparency," Fidanque said.
The City Council voted to accept the report in a 3-2 vote despite concerns by many of the commissioners over the lack of information contained in the report.
Final Portland Reports on JTTF Greatly Improved, But…
February 29, 2012 – Significantly modified reports on the City of Portland’s relationship with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) were approved by the City Council after the ACLU’s testified they were greatly improved, but still lacked data that would permit the public to independently confirm that Oregon law and the Constitution are being honored by the City.
February 29, 2012 - UPDATE: This week the Eugene City Council voted to extend their downtown exclusion zone for another seven months. ACLU of Oregon has opposed this program since it was first established in 2008. (See our briefing paper below to learn more.) This is the second time this ordinance has been renewed and although we are disappointed with the extension we recognize that it might have been worse – there were enough votes on the city council to extend it for two years or even make it permanent.
July 2011 - Despite numerous proposals to undermine civil liberties during the 2011 Oregon legislative session we had a very successful session. While we had a few losses along the way, we stopped the most egregious attempts to undermine civil liberties. We are happy to report our proposal to require the government to properly preserve evidence that can be used to exonerate a person years after conviction passed unanimously in both the Senate and the House.
This was one of the shortest sessions in Oregon history. However that did not reduce the numbers of bills introduced or considered. This report covers the highlights, and in a few cases, the lowlights, of the 2011 session. With another legislative session beginning in February 2012, we expect many of the proposals that we successfully stopped will be renewed during in the short one-month session. In the past two previous “short” sessions in 2008 and 2010, important policy issues were advanced with very little debate or opportunity for us to provide meaningful input.
In the 2011 session, we tracked hundreds of legislative proposals that in most cases would have diminished civil liberties and civil rights. These proposals covered the whole gamut of our work area including free speech, search and seizure, privacy, criminal justice, reproductive rights, equal protection, public records, religious freedom, the death penalty, prisoner rights and drug reform. This report begins with a summary of the ACLU sponsored proposals and then covers the work we did by issue area.
To see how your legislator voted on civil liberties issues, download the ACLU of Oregon's 2011 Legislative Scorecard (PDF).
The ACLU testified against HB 3664, which would have significantly rewritten and weakened the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act (OMMA).
SB 77 was introduced on behalf of the Oregon Department of Corrections (DOC). In its original form, SB 77 replicated the exhaustion requirements in the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). Under these requirements an inmate can only bring a claim for mistreatment within a facility after he or she has exhausted the administrative grievance process.