LOS ANGELES - Community leaders and groups today unveiled an unprecedented level of support for a new racial profiling data collection bill, AB 788, introduced by Assemblymember Marco Firebaugh. The bill requires data collection on traffic stops and establishes a strong statutory definition of racial profiling to enable law enforcement agencies and communities to combat the problem effectively. Today was the deadline for groups to list their support or opposition to the bill for its first hearing. More than seventy community organizations and civil rights groups across the state have submitted their endorsements to the Public Safety Committee - far more endorsements than a typical bill -- an indication that last year's efforts built momentum on this issue and that communities have quickly lined up to make this a top civil rights priority again this year.

"The time has come to end practices that criminalize our communities," said Angela Sanbrano Executive Director of the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN). "Passage of AB 788 is a step in that direction."

Communities targeted with racial profiling know that the problem pervades law enforcement in this state. According to recent surveys by the Public Policy Institute of California, 82% of African American Californians believe that the problem not only exists, but that it's widespread. 65% of Latino Californians share that view, as does a majority of Asian Americans. 72% of young African American men in a Gallup poll reported experiencing this pernicious practice.

Civil rights organizations including MALDEF, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., LULAC, Asian Pacific American Legal Center, the Central American Resource Center, the ACLU affiliates of Southern California, Northern California, and San Diego, and over sixty other groups have joined in the effort to support AB 788.

"For decades people of color have complained that racial profiling is a serious problem in the State, but little has been done to address it," said Assemblymember Firebaugh. "AB 788 prohibits racial profiling and defines it as the practice of the use of race; 'in any fashion' and 'to any degree' by law enforcement, except when officers are on the look out for a specific suspect identified in part by race. We hope that our continuous demand for change will not go unheard."

Eight other states have passed bills requiring data collection on racial profiling in traffic stops, five of them states with Republican Governors, and the conservative Texas legislature has just passed such a measure. California has had several opportunities to enact such a law, but has failed to do so. The groups promised that this year would be different.

"This is a moderate measure that's all about basic fairness," said Isabelle Gunning, ACLU of Southern California Board Member. "California is behind the curve and hasn't yet taken the problem seriously."

"Data collection and a strong statutory definition are the keys to this problem," said Gunning. "Without information or a strong definition, California communities and their law enforcement officers cannot tackle this pernicious practice, cannot establish new and better standards of policing, and cannot design or measure effective training programs that will remove bias from policing."

Victor Narro, Workers' Rights Project Director at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), pointed out that the definition of racial profiling proposed in the bill, which defines racial profiling as using race "in any fashion" or "to any degree" in determining whom to stop, will make a significant difference to law enforcement agencies as they train their officers not to practice racial profiling.

"Many law enforcement agencies rely on a definition of racial profiling which is deficient," said Narro. "That definition says that race may not be the "sole" reason for a stop, but we all know how thick the California Vehicle Code is and how easy it is for an officer to find a reason in addition to race to pull a person over. A cracked taillight, for instance, could be cited as a reason. We want to root out that kind of selective use of the law, and that's why a strong, clear definition is necessary."

In addition to requiring data collection on the race or ethnicity of the motorist, the bill requires police officers to list the reason for the stop, whether a search was conducted, and whether a citation was issued - all of which are areas in which motorists of color have reported differential treatment.

The bill also requires any local agencies that receive state money for their data collection efforts to conform to the same standard of data collection, collecting information on all five key categories listed above.

AB 788 will be heard before the Assembly's Public Safety Committee on Tuesday, April 17.

SAN FRANCISCO - A California State Superior Court today handed a substantial victory to the coalition of civil rights groups that are fighting to reform California's failed and inequitable school system in the landmark, statewide education lawsuit, Williams v. State of California, filed last May. The State earlier filed a smokescreen cross-complaint, in which the State attempted to blame individual school districts rather than acknowledge any responsibility for its own system, and today the Court severed that suit from Williams v State of California and put off any proceedings on it until Williams is decided.

"This is a tremendous victory for plaintiffs," said John Affeldt of Public Advocates, Inc., who argued the motion. "Today the Judge removed the State's case against the districts from our case and prevented that case from proceeding. Now we will be focusing exclusively on the State's failure to establish an effective system of oversight which delivers fundamental educational tools to students in the state."

"The Judge's order," said Michael Jacobs, a partner at Morrison & Foerster, pro bono co-counsel in the case, "will allow school children to get the real relief they need as quickly as possible without a needless finger-pointing exercise against school districts that cannot themselves do what the state should have done in the first instance."

"The State tried to pass the buck to school districts," said Catherine Lhamon, staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California, "but the Judge put the buck right back where it belongs - in the lap of the state."

The Court also denied the State's motion for summary judgment on a group of plaintiffs from Cloverdale, whose classrooms routinely reach unbearably high temperatures.

LOS ANGELES - The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California reported today on Los Angeles mayoral candidates' responses to the ACLU's questions about police reform. The report, which asked mayoral candidates questions concerning Rampart, the consent decree, structural reforms beyond the consent decree, and the problem of officer morale, reveals a general commitment to reform - with key differences on specific measures.

Four of the major candidates, Congressmember Xavier Becerra, State Controller Kathleen Connell, City Attorney James Hahn, and Speaker Emeritus of the California Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa, responded to the survey. Two of the major candidates, Councilmember Joel Wachs, and real estate developer Steve Soboroff, declined to participate.

"All four of the candidates who responded call for reforms that go beyond what the federal consent decree requires," said Ramona Ripston, Executive Director of the ACLU of Southern California. "This signals a huge shift from the current mayoral administration's position. Each of these candidates stated that he or she would have called for an independent investigation if he or she had been mayor. I don't think people realize what a momentous sea change this represents. The ACLU called for such an investigation from the beginning, and few listened. But less than two years later, four of the six major candidates share this opinion."

Other highlights of the survey include:

--Three of the four candidates, Becerra, Connell, and Villaraigosa, support creating an Office of Civilian Complaints, charged with the independent investigation of civilian complaints, staffed by trained civilian investigators, and funded at a level to make the swift and thorough investigation of all complaints possible. Connell suggests modeling the office on San Francisco's, with one civilian investigator for every 150 police officers (see http://www.ci.sf.ca.us/occ/ for more on the San Francisco model).

--All four candidates support providing the Inspector General with the authority to offer immunity to whistleblowers whose only offense may have been not reporting misconduct earlier - a reform steadfastly resisted by the current administration.

--Three of the candidates, Becerra, Hahn, and Villaraigosa, support increasing the Police Commission's role in setting disciplinary policy, and the other candidate, Connell, proposes that disciplinary policy should be set under a civilian review board.

--One candidate, Villaraigosa, called for a multi-jurisdictional investigation headed by the California Attorney General with the focus expanded to include other institutions implicated in Rampart, including the courts, the Public Defender, and the District Attorney.

--Three of the four candidates, Becerra, Hahn, and Villaraigosa, support the professionalization of one or more Police Commission posts.

Ripston pointed out that police reform has been a central civil rights struggle for Los Angeles for at least the last eight decades. In 1923, in fact, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the first ACLU affiliate in the nation, was founded by Upton Sinclair, after he was arrested by the LAPD for reading the First Amendment at a rally of striking longshoremen.

Since that time, she noted, problems with the LAPD, have periodically burst into the public - Sleepy Lagoon in 1945, the Bloody Christmas scandal of 1951, the Watts riots of 1965, the Eulia Love killing in 1979, the Dalton Avenue police raid in 1988, the Rodney King beating in 1991, and the current Rampart scandal. But efforts to reform the Department, including the McCone Commission (1965), the Christopher Commission (1991), and the Bobb and Epstein report (1996), failed to take root, because they met with resistance from the Department, poor political follow-through, and structural impediments.

"The Rampart scandal and the federal consent decree that the Department's civil rights abuses triggered present Los Angeles with another critical opportunity to institute much needed-reform measures," said Ripston. "We need a mayor who will seize that opportunity, rather than shrink from it. At numerous points in Los Angeles' lamentable history of police abuse, strong political leadership might have made the difference. This is one of those moments, and we can't afford to squander it."