Position Description
So far my job is incredibly fun. I design and implement grassroots strategies to mobilize members, but also community members at large, in Arizona to take meaningful action on local, state, and national civil liberties issues.
Right now, our priority campaigns are on immigrant's rights, LGBT rights, racial profiling, and voting rights. Arizona’s felon voting ban is one of the strictest in the nation, with one of every 23 citizens unable to vote. The state maintains the 8th highest rate of disfranchisement in the nation. Although the state has a relatively modest black population, the disfranchisement rate for African Americans is the third highest nationally, with one of every five adults ineligible to vote! Fuck that shit.
I'm a part of (and will be leading it, when my e.d. is on maternity leave in a few weeks) the Arizona Rights Restoration Coalition, which is developing a campaign to end AZ's felon voting ban. The Coalition is comprised of representatives from other prominent advocacy groups in the state who work on issues around voting, prison reform, prisoner rights; civil rights in general (like the NAACAP); etc. We are working on proposing legislation in the next legislative session to make it so that people who have been convicted of a felony can still vote and participate in the electoral, democratic process. We come up with strategies on how to do this by identifying which Representatives will support this bill, which ones won't, finding out how we can gain bipartisan support, finding states that passed similar legislation and using that language as a model to draft our own; finding the right organizations and groups to join the coalition; getting the information out to voters and organizational members to lobby their elected officials and encourage them to support this bill...that kind of stuff. It's really complex and tedious, but also exciting. I learn a lot as I go.
I also organize community education events like town hall meetings, media events and forums. We have some events coming up in May that we're flying a former FBI agent out to talk about government surveillance and secrecy with fusion centers. Right now I'm trying to contact someone from the Department of Homeland Security to participate and answer questions for the audience.
I also build alliances and coalitions with communities of color, communities of faith, the LGBT community, and other interest groups on key civil rights issues. I work with the 4 chapters we have in the state, meeting with them and assisting them with implementing programs and actions on legislation and ballot initiatives; and I coordinate volunteers. I like my job a lot because I get to work with the people in the community who take a lot of risk by fighting for their rights in Arizona (it's NOT anything like California over here, my word...). So, in a nutshell, I work on legislation, ballot initiatives (promoting them or fighting them, depending on if they're good or bad), but never electoral politics, obviously, because the ACLU is non-partisan and we don't endorse candidates--only issues. Like you didn't know or sumthin'.
Right now, our priority campaigns are on immigrant's rights, LGBT rights, racial profiling, and voting rights. Arizona’s felon voting ban is one of the strictest in the nation, with one of every 23 citizens unable to vote. The state maintains the 8th highest rate of disfranchisement in the nation. Although the state has a relatively modest black population, the disfranchisement rate for African Americans is the third highest nationally, with one of every five adults ineligible to vote! Fuck that shit.
I'm a part of (and will be leading it, when my e.d. is on maternity leave in a few weeks) the Arizona Rights Restoration Coalition, which is developing a campaign to end AZ's felon voting ban. The Coalition is comprised of representatives from other prominent advocacy groups in the state who work on issues around voting, prison reform, prisoner rights; civil rights in general (like the NAACAP); etc. We are working on proposing legislation in the next legislative session to make it so that people who have been convicted of a felony can still vote and participate in the electoral, democratic process. We come up with strategies on how to do this by identifying which Representatives will support this bill, which ones won't, finding out how we can gain bipartisan support, finding states that passed similar legislation and using that language as a model to draft our own; finding the right organizations and groups to join the coalition; getting the information out to voters and organizational members to lobby their elected officials and encourage them to support this bill...that kind of stuff. It's really complex and tedious, but also exciting. I learn a lot as I go.
I also organize community education events like town hall meetings, media events and forums. We have some events coming up in May that we're flying a former FBI agent out to talk about government surveillance and secrecy with fusion centers. Right now I'm trying to contact someone from the Department of Homeland Security to participate and answer questions for the audience.
I also build alliances and coalitions with communities of color, communities of faith, the LGBT community, and other interest groups on key civil rights issues. I work with the 4 chapters we have in the state, meeting with them and assisting them with implementing programs and actions on legislation and ballot initiatives; and I coordinate volunteers. I like my job a lot because I get to work with the people in the community who take a lot of risk by fighting for their rights in Arizona (it's NOT anything like California over here, my word...). So, in a nutshell, I work on legislation, ballot initiatives (promoting them or fighting them, depending on if they're good or bad), but never electoral politics, obviously, because the ACLU is non-partisan and we don't endorse candidates--only issues. Like you didn't know or sumthin'.
posted by Mary Elizabeth | 12:03 PM
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