As always, we will proactively advocate for bills to expand our civil liberties, and fight those that would restrict them, but we can’t do that without your help!
2016 Legislative Priorities
The Utah legislative session kicked off on Monday, January 25, and already we are swept up in the whirlwind 45 days of legislating. Join us at the State Capitol on February 9 for our Community Lobby Training, to learn how to be an effective advocate for civil liberties.
The 2016 ACLU of Utah legislative priorities are:
- Establish guidelines for the responsible use of police body cams.
- Promote the rights of pregnant and breastfeeding mothers in the workplace.
- Protect the criminal justice reforms passed last year, while expanding upon those reforms with important sentencing changes.
- Preserve women’s access to a full range of reproductive health services, including safe and legal abortions.
- Reform our state’s failed county-by-county system of providing public defense.
- End government-sponsored discrimination against people with criminal records in housing and employment.
- Strengthen Utah’s “Hate Crimes” statute to better protect members of historically marginalized groups from persecution.
- Secure the right to choose the manner and timing of their deaths for terminally ill Utahns through “Aid In Dying” legalization.
- Ensure that sick Utahns are allowed legal access to cannabis for medical purposes.
- Establish training and other requirements for school districts that choose to employ police, or School Resource Officers, in their schools.
(Links are provided once a bill has been filed)
Things move fast during the legislative session and to get current information about these important issue and developing actions, follow us on Facebook and Twitter where we will be providing day-to-day updates from the Utah State Capitol.
We also hope that you will join us at the Community Lobby Training so that you can be an informed, effective partner in our work.
Follow our 2016 legislative blog posts: