The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California today filed a federal lawsuit Jose Sanchez vs Frank J. De Santis, Jr. [98-0768 DT (CWx)] on behalf of tenants of a HUD-subsidized housing unit in the Pico Union area challenging the actions of a landlord who had two tenant organizers arrested who were invited by residents to a meeting held at the apartment complex.

Los Angeles Gardens Apartments residents charge in the lawsuit that their free speech, associational and privacy rights, as guaranteed under both federal and state constitutions and federal housing statutes, were violated and that the landlord unlawfully retaliated in violation of state law.

Defendant Frank De Santis is president of Community Partnership Development Corporation and its subsidiary Los Angeles Gardens Community Association, a non-profit entity that owns subsidized housing complexes in the Los Angeles area.

In late November, plaintiffs invited organizers from the Coalition for Economic Survival to a tenant's apartment to assist in conducting a meeting to discuss tenant concerns. During that meeting, De Santis called the LAPD's Rampart Division claiming that the organizers were trespassing. The two CES tenant organizers were arrested although the residents had invited them to conduct tenant outreach, training and organizing activities, all actions approved and funded by HUD. On several other occasions, agents of the owner have threatened to call the police to have organizers arrested for trespassing, although they had always been invited by residents.

The ACLU is charging that a pattern of retaliation from De Santis followed efforts by tenants to play an active role in the development's management and to improve conditions at the facility. The lawsuit claims that because the tenant plaintiffs formed a tenants' association and recommended a community based nonprofit group which sought to purchase the property under the federal Low Income Housing Preservation and Resident Home Ownership Act of 1990, De Santis, is striking back. Although the tenant association failed to obtain the property, it continues to monitor conditions and governance including the enforcement of HUD regulations.

The ACLU charges in the lawsuit that defendant De Santis has refused to accept the tenant association, even after a 1996 City of Los Angeles Housing Department-monitored election confirmed the group, and that he later undermined its efforts by rigging a 1997 tenant association election in which only 11 out of a possible 101 ballots were cast, in part because tenants were not told of the balloting.

ACLU attorneys charge in the lawsuit that the climate of fear created by the landlord's intimidation and harassment became so extreme that they could not even deliver documents to one of their clients who was too ill to leave her apartment. The ACLU says the landlord's actions violate basic civil liberties and federal housing regulations.

In a related action, the ACLU of Southern California is representing one of the arrested tenant organizers and two non-profit tenant-rights' organizations, the Coalition for Economic Survival and the Los Angeles Center for Affordable Housing, in a state lawsuit filed by DeSantis. The ACLU claims that the landlord's lawsuit is nothing but a "Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP)" suit, a frivolous lawsuit filed to punish civil rights activists.

In the first Circuit Court decision stopping a state from using the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act to reduce public benefits to new residents, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld the June 4 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge David Levi blocking California's attempt to reduce public assistance benefits to eligible new state residents.

Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director with the ACLU of Southern California said, "This is the first case in the country challenging a state's attempt to use the 1996 federal welfare act to deny equal justice to the poor. This decision means that the Governor must remove his heel from the backs of poor women and children. California cannot detach itself from the union just to keep out poor people seeking a better life."

In issuing a preliminary injunction last summer, Judge Levi said that California may not institute laws that thwart the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by treating new state residents differently from longer-term residents. Today's ruling affirms the ban that stops Governor Wilson from reducing public assistance benefits to qualified families who have lived here for less than one year to the amount they would have received in the state they left. Such a reduction would mean that, for example, a family of four from Mississippi requiring basic assistance would receive $144 a month rather than California's allotment of $673.

Martha Davis, legal director of the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund said, "This landmark ruling is a victory for women fleeing domestic abuse, who are forced to move across state lines in order to avoid stalking and violence. Our constitution guarantees that women in this situation must be treated like all other California residents." The American Civil Liberties Foundation of Southern California, the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund and the ACLUs of Northern California and San Diego/Imperial County represent plaintiffs in Roe vs Anderson [CIV-S-97-0529 DFL].

BAKERSFIELD Responding to a warning from the American Civil Liberties Union that mandatory use of Internet filtering software may result in a lawsuit, libraries in Kern County, California, were sent this directive late Tuesday: "Please unfilter your terminals immediately!"

According to a letter faxed to the ACLU today and signed by Kern County Counsel Bernard C. Barmann, Sr., the county's new policy will provide a choice of an unfiltered or a filtered computer to both adult and minor patrons. No parental consent will be required for minors to access unfiltered computers.

The resolution came less than one week after the ACLU issued a warning that it would take legal action if officials did not remove Internet filtering software from public library computers within 10 days. The ACLU hailed the policy change as a complete victory for free speech rights.

"The County made the right decision, and I'm sure we are all relieved that this issue has been resolved swiftly and without a lengthy and costly legal battle," said Peter Eliasberg, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California.

"Kern County now joins libraries in Santa Clara County and in San Jose, among others, in deciding to be providers of information, not censors," he added.

"We applaud the Board of Supervisor's decision to honor the First Amendment rights of Kern County citizens by changing its library Internet access policy to allow all adult and minor patrons to decide for themselves whether to access the Internet with or without a filter," said ACLU National Staff Attorney Ann Beeson, in a letter to the County Counsel sent on behalf of the national ACLU and the ACLU's of Northern and Southern California.

Beeson also urged the libraries to clearly mark filtered and nonfiltered terminals so that patrons can make informed decisions about which terminal to use, and to place terminals for maximum privacy.

The filtering issue has drawn many cities across the country into a national debate about whether library systems should limit what people can see on the Internet. A library in Loudon County, Virginia is currently facing a legal challenge from local library patrons after adopting a similar Internet blocking policy. The ACLU is considering an intervention in that lawsuit on behalf of online speakers who are blocked from reaching library patrons.

"Libraries are our nation's storehouses of knowledge," said Ann Brick, Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Northern California. "Their mission is to make that knowledge available to young and old alike. Filters are fundamentally antithetical to that mission."