Breaking: Urgent litigation and advocacy unfolding in Texas

 

Friends –

What's happening in Texas at this moment should concern all of us – whether you live in the state or elsewhere.

Gov. Greg Abbott called a special legislative session to order last Thursday, overtly aimed at reviving a slew of anti-civil rights bills that were blocked in the state's last regular session.

The bills in this new session attack voter rights, transgender rights, reproductive freedom, critical race theory, and much more. They're blatantly consistent with similar attacks that we've seen unfold across the states this year – and it has led many lawmakers to temporarily leave Texas to break quorum and block such bills from passing.

At this urgent time, alongside our Texas affiliate and advocates like you, the ACLU is moving fast – both at the legislature and in court. Here's what you should know so far:

• Defending abortion access: On Tuesday, as events continued to unfold in the legislature's special session, the ACLU and the ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit with co-counsel challenging Senate Bill 8 – a blatantly unconstitutional law that bans abortion at approximately six weeks and also authorizes anyone to sue an abortion provider and collect at least $10,000 for each abortion if they win. This law passed earlier this year and will go into effect in the state as soon as September 1 unless we stop it.
• Safeguarding the vote: In the first two days of the special session, lawmakers made it clear that voter suppression was priority by introducing two restrictive voting bills: Senate Bill 1 and House Bill 3. While our affiliate teams testified at the House and Senate and our advocates joined grassroots efforts to push back against these extreme measures, ACLU and ACLU of Texas also began representing Mr. Hervis Rogers, a 62-year-old Black man who faces decades in prison after the state recently accused him of voting when ineligible for what was at worst an innocent mistake.
• Protecting transgender youth: In addition to abortion bans and suppressive voting restrictions, roughly a dozen pieces of anti-transgender bills have made their way into the Texas legislature again during this session, including several that would ban trans youth from their right to play school sports. While our teams on the ground work with fellow activists to fight against these bills, our legal team is also prepping to litigate if any of these cruel and unnecessary bills should become law.

What happens in one state like Texas can have a ripple effect across all of them, especially at a time when lawmakers are clearly leveraging state law for their own anti-civil liberties agenda.

But that's why the ACLU has specifically positioned ourselves in all 50 states, D.C., and Puerto Rico – so we can act quickly at a moment's notice, wherever we're needed.

In your state and nationwide, we will not stop being there for people's rights. And it's dedication like yours that fuels that fight. So please stay tuned across the states and thanks for all you do.

Onward,

The ACLU Team