News & Commentary

Join us for a virtual screening of "RIGGED: The Voter Suppression Playbook" -- an award-winning documentary that exposes the nefarious tactics used to suppress the vote and serves to spark discussion on the actions needed to protect our democracy. Shot principally during the 2016 election, the film tracks a systematic, decade-long effort to reverse the impact of the growing demographic tide of non-white and younger voters who helped elect President Barack Obama in 2008. It details a variety of voter suppression “plays,” or tactics, ranging from the purging of voting rolls and passing of new, restrictive voter ID laws to gerrymandering and voter intimidation. It is narrated by Tony & Emmy award-winning actor, Jeffrey Wright.

An Alaska court has ruled that the witness requirement for absentee ballots is unconstitutional during the COVID-19 pandemic.  Parties in this case are working now to determine how the Election Division can alert voters about any subsequent changes.

Voting rights advocates filed a lawsuit today challenging an absentee ballot witness requirement that needlessly puts Alaskans at risk of COVID-19.The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Alaska, Native American Rights Fund, and Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

The ACLU of Alaska, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, and the Native American Rights Fund have called upon Alaska’s Lt. Governor to protect the health of Alaskans and the health of American democracy.

ANCHORAGE -- The American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska is supporting Tlingit & Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska effort to establish two programs supporting individuals releasing from prisons. The hollistic Juneau-based programs, Alaway Avenue and Allen Court transitional housing programs, will not only help fill this growing gap of necessary services for returning citizens to be successful, but also provide alternative housing options outside of the private prison industry, which derive their corporate profits by warehousing and caging people, and outside of the congregate emergency shelter model that is struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The ACLU of Alaska filed a legal challenge to Governor Dunleavy’s latest veto of court system funding after he doubled down on his unprecedented 2019 attack on the judiciary in retaliation for a court ruling at odds with his own personal beliefs. 

ANCHORAGE – Today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers can’t unfairly fire or otherwise discriminate against LGBTQ+ people in the workplace. This decision alleviates the anxiety among gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer or transgender employees that they could be fired from their job — thereby losing their health care and the ability to take care of themselves and their family — just because of who they are. Today’s ruling by the Supreme Court has taken action to prevent life-threatening harm for millions of Americans. 

On Wednesday, May 7, 2020 ACLU of Alaska Policy Director Triada Stampas testified during a Matanuska-Susitna School Board meeting in support of rescinding the board's April 22, 2020 decision to remove books and teaching materials labeled “controversial” from the High School English Elective Curriculum and Reading List, Part I. 

This op-ed was origionally published in the Anchorage Daily News on May 5, 2020.