Civil Rights

A report byThe Sentencing Project released this week shows that the number of African-Americans in state prisons for drug crimes dropped 21.6% from 1999-2005, a reduction of more than 31,000 individuals.

Even as Planned Parenthood, MTV and the Kaiser Family Foundation team up in a campaign to prevent sexually transmitted diseases (STD), state legislatures are acting to ensure students' access to comprehensive sex education and are rejecting federal funding for failed abstinence-only programs. Half of all sexually active people will have an STD by the age of 25 with 19 million new STD cases occurring each year. These statistics highlight the need for improving youth sex education.

The number of states giving full state marriage rights to same-sex couples has doubled in under a week as first Iowa and then Vermont joined Massachusetts and Connecticut in achieving marriage equality.  Additionally, the District of Columbia City Council recently voted to recognize same-sex marriages conducted in other states. 

On Monday, March 23rd, the Vermont Senate overwhelmingly passed (26 to 4) a bill legalizing same-sex marriage, making the state the first in the nation to take legislative rather than judicial steps toward granting marriage rights to same-sex couples.  Although House Speaker Shap Smith was confident a majority of representatives would vote in favor of the "marriage equality" act, Governor Jim Douglas revealed in a press conference Wednesday that he would veto the bill, though he did say he would accept a legislative override.

7 states are suing the federal government to stop a last minute rule by former President Bush that pre-empts state laws guaranteeing women's access to reproductive services, including abortion and emergency contraception. The so-called "provider conscience regulation" became effective on Tuesday shortly after President Obama's swearing-in and allows health care workers who object to abortion and contraception to deny women care.  This pre-empts state laws designed to ensure access to necessary reproductive care and threatens womens' health, as detailed by the National Women's Law Center.

The most recent edition of the American Bar Association's magazine, Criminal Justice, highlights a new tool -- racial impact statements -- that states are using to address the racial disparity in their criminal justice systems.  The problem of disparate treatment was highlighted in two 2007 reports detailing the critical failure of states to administer justice without regard to race or ethnicity.

Soon after the November elections and the dispiriting setbacks for gay marriage equality in California, Arizona, and Florida, a group of religious leaders in Maine formed a coalition to advocate for gay marriage rights and actively seek equal treatment for gay and lesbian couples within Maine law.  The group, Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry in Maine, includes 120 clergy from across the state and 14 different faith traditions, including United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Unitarian Universalist, Congregational, and the United Church of Christ.

Last week, Connecticut's high court struck down the state's civil union law and ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.  Connecticut joins Massachusetts and California as the only states that recognize gay marriage.  As the New York Times reported, the Connecticut ruling is notable because it found for the first time that a state civil union law, while providing all the legal rights of marriage to gay couples but limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, violated the state's "constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law."

There are stark differences between the two presidential campaigns' approaches to federal-state relationships.  Differences range from the amount of funding appropriated for programs run by the states to whether the candidates would strengthen or weaken state regulatory authority.

The new federal mental health parity law, passed as part of the recent $700 billion financial bailout package, is a real piece of help for families around the country. Even better, the law will not preempt stronger state parity legislation. The law will help states achieve their parity goals because it applies to self-insured health plans which are not subject to state regulation.