For the fourth consecutive legislative session, the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia hosted its weekly citizen lobbyist training event "By The People Day."  The purpose of our weekly gathering is to provide individuals in Georgia access to the political process while creating a space for progressive organizations, their members, and interested individuals to meet and get updates on a variety of issues and to take action.  This session,  we held twelve meetings.   Over 300 people attended and we worked with over thirty coalition organizations.  Each week we went over the basics of being a citizen lobbyist, shared the latest information on the legislation we were tracking, and discussed our position and strategy.  Afterwards, we walked across the street to the Capitol and met with legislators regarding  the issues we discussed that morning.  Whether you are completely new to state politics or an expert, By The People Days provides you with vital knowledge and a chance to connect with the progressive community active in Georgia. 

                During the 2009 legislative session, we focused on legislation that fell into one or more of our key issue areas: racial justice, voting rights, death penalty, and immigrants' rights.  Legislation that impacted voting rights and immigrant communities quickly became the priority with a handful of bills falling into each category.  We worked to oppose legally questionable legislation including English-only driver's license exam (SB67), proof of citizenship for voter registration (SB86), and school vouchers (SB90), to name a few.  Every week, our volunteers, interns, coalition organizations, and citizen lobbyists met with legislators regarding these bills.  For instance, early in the session twenty By The People Day participants- including a documentary filmmaker with her camera rolling-led by Azadeh Shahshahani and me, met with Senator Jeff Mullis (R - Chickamauga) on two pieces of legislation that, if passed, would adversely affect immigrant communities: a prohibition on local government sanctuary policies (SB20) and English-only driver's license exam (SB67).  Although SB20 passed both houses of the legislature and made it to Governor Purdue's desk, where he signed it into law on May 5, 2009, SB67 did not make it out of the General Assembly. We expect that SB67 will reemerge next session beginning in January, 2010. Please visit our website for a complete list of the legislation we tracked in 2009.

                Like SB67 mentioned above, we fully expect to see early in the 2010 session, constitutionally controversial legislation that did not pass last year, such as the non-unanimous jury for death penalty sentencing (HB32) and school vouchers (SB90).  Moreover, to complicate matters, 2010 is an election year, which is going to make constituent involvement all the more important in moving forward progressive issues.  In light of the Department of Justice's finding that Georgia's system of verifying the citizenship of voters disproportionately impacts minority groups, the voting rights of all Georgians and the rights of immigrants in Georgia will figure prominently in our work during the 2010 session.  Lastly, we will monitor legislation that impacts the LGBTQ community particularly in light of the recent shifts in other states on the question of the rights of gay individuals.

                So mark your calendars for the beginning of the 2010 legislative session, which we anticipate will be January 11, 2010, and the first By The People Day on the following Wednesday.  I am looking forward to meeting more of our members "under the Gold Dome" in 2010.

Rebecca Roy
Organizer/Lobbyist
ACLU of Georgia

 

Our own Azadeh Shahshahani was recently chosen by students at the University of Georgia Law School as recipient of the 2009 Equal Justice Foundation Public Interest Practitioner Award. This award is given to a local practitioner who has inspired public interest law students.
 
In addition to her work as National Security/

Immigrants' Rights Project Director with the ACLU of Georgia, Azadeh is active with a number of other community organizations. Azadeh was recently selected to serve as the Southern Regional Vice President for the National Lawyers Guild; Vice Chair for Refugee Women's Network (a National organization based in Atlanta); and Chair of Georgia Detention Watch. Azadeh is also one of the founders of Human Rights Atlanta, a coalition of more than seventy metro-Atlanta organization which came together last year around the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Human Rights

Last night, I participated in a press conference to unveil a human rights resolution opposing the proposed DeKalb County Marine Corp. Institute (DCMI). DCMI would expose students as young as 14 to military discipline, military culture, and military training. It will be funded in part by the Marine Corps out of its recruitment budget and could become a pipeline for targeted minority recruitment into the military.

The school was originally slated to open in August. Due to the strong community mobilization against this proposal, the DeKalb County Board of Education announced on Friday that it has postponed the opening date. While celebrating this victory yesterday evening, we called on the Board of Education not to revive this or similar proposals meant to militarize public school education.

We based this demand on the U.S. international human rights obligations. The United States has ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict. Because the United States ratified the Optional Protocol in 2002, the Protocol is binding on the U.S. government and local government entities and agents, including DeKalb County.

Under a binding declaration entered by the U.S., 17 is the absolute minimum age for military recruitment (even though the prevailing international standard is to prohibit the voluntary recruitment of children under the age of 18 into the military-in fact, 89 of 128 countries that are parties to the Optional Protocol have a "straight-18" standard that sets 18 as the minimum age for recruitment).

In May 2008, the ACLU submitted a report to the Committee on Rights of the Child (CRC), the United Nations body that monitors compliance with the Optional Protocol, detailing the government's failure to comply with its obligations under the Optional Protocol. The ACLU found that the U.S. military continues to engage in tactics designed to recruit students under the age of 17. The ACLU also found that U.S. military recruitment tactics disproportionately target low-income youth and students of color. After examining U.S. recruitment practices last year, the CRC called on the U.S. to end military training in public schools and stop targeting racial minorities or low-income children for recruitment.

Establishment of DMCI or any similar institution in DeKalb County would clearly run counter to the United States' international human rights obligations.

After the press conference, more than 30 community members, including several DeKalb County parents, attended the DeKalb Board of Education meeting to speak against any future prospect for DMCI. One speaker also read out the human rights resolution.

Through their speaking out and reading of the human rights resolution last night, community members conveyed this message to the DeKalb County Board of Education: military training and abusive recruitment practices have no place in DeKalb County public schools; not now, not ever.