[ Issues ]

Civil and Human Rights

Packing the Federal Courts:
The Right-Wing Threat to Civil Rights

A revolution is underway in the federal courts. A 20-year campaign by the radical right to fill the courts with conservative ideologues has done severe damage to 50 years of civil rights progress. Already a number of laws protecting minorities, women, workers, the disabled and the environment have been undermined, and more are at risk.

The stakes are very high. The courts have narrowed or struck down anti-discrimination laws, the Violence Against Women Act, affirmative action programs, and other guarantees of equal opportunity. And the courts are taking aim at workers’ rights and environmental protections.

Much of this is happening outside of public view. While most people know about the role of the Supreme Court and the importance of a Supreme Court nomination, far fewer pay attention to the lower federal courts.

Yet these courts can have an even greater effect on the law than the Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court typically hears fewer than 100 cases a year, the federal courts of appeal, which are the courts that are immediately below the Supreme Court, decide almost 30,000 cases a year. Thus, the courts of appeal are the courts of last resort for most people.

The radical right, recognizing the importance of lower court judges, set out 20 years ago on a relentless political effort to pack the federal courts with conservative ideologues. This began during the Reagan and first Bush administrations. During the Clinton administration, Senate Republicans blocked votes on numerous qualified, moderate judges in order to keep those seats open in the hopes that a Republican president would later fill them with conservative ideologues. Now President Bush is poised to complete the right wing court-packing plan. Because federal judges are appointed for life, these right-wing judges could have the power to change the nation for decades to come.

During 2008 the UAW and our allies will continue to oppose efforts by the Bush administration to roll back the clock on rights for workers, minorities and women by appointing more reactionary ideologues to the federal courts. We will urge Senate Democrats to stand firm against this court packing plan.

Action

Affirmative Action

With the passage of Proposal 2 in the 2006 election, Michigan became the third state after California and Washington to approve a ballot initiative banning affirmative action and equal opportunity initiatives in state contracting, education and employment. Civil rights lawyers are now examining the potential reach of Proposal 2. The ACLU of Michigan and the NAACP’s Detroit Branch have filed a lawsuit asking a federal court to declare that passage of Proposal 2 has not changed the Supreme Court’s decision in Grutter v. Bollinger, which upheld the use of race and gender as one of many factors in college admissions.

Meanwhile, the leader of previous anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives, Ward Connerly, has announced plans to pursue a “Super Tuesday” in 2008 by pushing ballot initiative campaigns in up to 11 states, including Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. The UAW will be working with our civil rights allies to oppose any anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives. We also will closely monitor activities in Congress, and will strongly oppose any federal anti-affirmative action proposals.

During the coming year the UAW will continue our outreach efforts throughout the nation on the importance of affirmative action and steps to end discrimination.

We are committed to preventing the reoccurrence of discrimination and to creating equal opportunities for qualified minorities and women.

Action

Hate Crimes Prevention Legislation

Hate crimes are an affront to American ideals. When people are targeted for violence because of who they are, entire communities suffer. When local government cannot or will not prosecute the perpetrators of hate crimes, the federal government must be able to take a stand on the side of justice.

The UAW and our allies in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights continue to strongly support the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 ( H.R. 1592; S 1105). This legislation would strengthen the federal hate crimes law by removing unnecessary obstacles to federal prosecutions and by providing authority for federal involvement in a wider category of bias-motivated crimes.

Current law leaves federal prosecutors powerless to intervene in bias-motivated crimes when they cannot establish that the crime was committed because of the victims’ involvement in a “federally protected activity,” such as attending a public school or voting. Federal prosecutors also lack standing to get involved in the prosecution of bias-motivated crimes based on the victim’s gender, sexual orientation or disability. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act would fix those problems by allowing federal involvement in the prosecution of violent crimes based on race, color, religion and national origin, as well as gender, sexual orientation and disability.

In 2007, the House passed this hate crimes prevention legislation. The Senate subsequently approved this measure as an amendment to the defense authorization bill. However, the Bush administration and GOP Congressional leaders continued to oppose this measure. Thus, at the time this paper was written, this issue was still unresolved.

Action

Racial Profiling

Is racial profiling real? Most Americans think so. A Gallup poll reported that 55 percent of whites and 83 percent of blacks believe racial profiling is widespread. And the reports of thousands of racial and ethnic group members across the country add credibility to the perception that racial profiling is real.

Racial profiling is any police or private security practice in which a person is treated as a suspect because of his or her race, ethnicity, nationality or religion. This occurs when police investigate, stop, frisk, search or use force against a person based on such characteristics, instead of evidence of a person’s criminal behavior. Racial profiling often involves the stopping and searching of people of color for traffic violations. Although normally associated with African Americans and Latinos, racial profiling also affects Asians, Native Americans, and, increasingly after 9/11, Arabs, Muslims and South Asians.

Although the Bush administration’s Department of Justice has issued guidelines on the use of race in law enforcement, its directive has a huge national security exception and lacks any enforcement mechanism. Thus, stronger federal legislation is needed to combat racial profiling in America.

Federal legislation should define racial profiling, make it illegal and require data collection on all law enforcement encounters. This legislation should provide individuals harmed by racial profiling with the power to stop law enforcement agencies from continuing to profile based on race, religion or nation origin.

Racial profiling violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and detracts law enforcement resources from the detection of real threats. It also builds a wall of distrust between minority communities and law enforcement. Passage of legislation forbidding racial profiling would send a strong message to minority communities that the federal government is committed to eliminating racial profiling and improving the relationship between police departments and the people they serve.

Action

Violence Against Women

For decades, the UAW has advocated ending violence against women and is proud of our role in helping to secure the initial passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) in 1994. VAWA not only increased funding for programs and services addressing violence against women. VAWA also improved law enforcements’ response to the victims of such violence.

However, more needs to be done to address this important issue. Additional programs are needed to help provide economic support for victims escaping violence. This includes assistance with housing, as well as allowing victims to receive unemployment insurance if they had to leave a job to escape violence.

Each year approximately two million women are physically or sexually assaulted by an intimate partner in the United States. Recent studies show that more than half of the victims of intimate partner violence are foreign-born. Immigrant women face more barriers to receiving treatment for domestic and sexual violence than women who are citizens. Often the abuser will use a woman’s immigration status to blackmail them into staying in the relationship and facing the battering.

Action

Equal Pay

In May 2007, the Supreme Court held in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber that the statute of limitations for bringing pay discrimination claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 begins to run from the day a pay decision is originally made, rather than from when the employee is subject to the decision or injured by it. This decision was a sharp departure from precedent, and would greatly limit the ability of workers to seek redress for unlawful pay discrimination.

As a result of the public outcry over this terrible decision, legislation was quickly introduced in Congress to overturn the Ledbetter decision. On July 31, 2007, the House passed this legislation, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (H.R. 2831), by a vote of 225-199.

A similar bill, the Fair Pay Restoration Act (S. 1843) has been introduced in the Senate. During 2008 the UAW will be urging Senators to pass this important measure to restore the ability of workers who have been injured by pay discrimination to pursue their claims in court.

President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963. Yet over four decades after its passage, equal pay is not a fact of life for American women and minorities. According to 2006 Census Bureau data, women still earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts. The same data shows that women of color experience even greater disparities: African American women make 72 cents for every dollar compared to men, while Hispanic women make only 56 cents. Even though women’s wages and educational attainment have been rising, there is still a sizeable gender wage gap that cannot be explained by factors other than discrimination.

Over the past three decades, we have made good strides in closing the wage gap between women and men. But we must not stop now. Despite remarkable changes in women’s labor force participation and educational attainment, women continue to unfairly earn lower wages compared to their male counterparts.

This is why the UAW supports the Paycheck Fairness Act (H.R.1338), sponsored by Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CN). This measure would strengthen the Equal Pay Act by closing loopholes that have undermined the effectiveness of this law, by increasing penalties for equal pay violations, and by prohibiting retaliation against workers who inquire about or disclose information about employer wage practices. During 2008 the UAW will work with our allies to urge Congress to approve this vital legislation.

Action

Voting Rights for Citizens of Washington, D.C.

The nearly 600,000 residents in our nation’s capital have no voting representation in the United States Congress. Although they pay federal taxes, serve on juries, and defend our country by serving in the armed services, they are only represented by a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives and have no representation at all in the U.S. Senate. The UAW and our allies in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights strongly support full voting rights for the residents of the District of Columbia.

As a first step, during 2007 we supported the “District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act” (DC VRA) (H.R. 1905; S. 1257) introduced by Representative Tom Davis (R-VA) and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) and by Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT). This bill would add two voting members to the House of Representatives, one for the District of Columbia and one to represent Utah. DC is linked to Utah because Utah very narrowly missed getting an additional Congressional seat following the 2000 U.S. Census. Officials in Utah believe that thousands of missionaries living abroad were unfairly excluded during that Census count. The DC VRA addresses that concern and provides a “vote-neutral” solution by adding two seats to the House, most likely represented by a Democrat in DC and a Republican in Utah.

The DC VRA passed the House of Representatives in April 2007, but was blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster in September. During 2008, the UAW will continue to work with our progressive allies to pass this legislation to bring long-overdue voting rights to the residents of the District of Columbia.

Action

Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)

The UAW has a long and proud tradition of supporting the fundamental principle that employment decisions should be made on the basis on one’s ability to perform a job, and not on extraneous characteristics or traits. Federal laws already outlaw job discrimination based on race, sex, religion, national origin, age or disability. Unfortunately, however, there is no prohibition against discrimination based on sexual orientation. As a result, thousands of Americans are denied employment opportunities each year because of their sexual orientation. This blatant discrimination takes many forms, including workers who are fired, denied promotions, not hired or subjected to harassment on the job simply because of their sexual orientation.

To correct this injustice, the UAW and our civil rights allies support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) (H.R. 3685). This legislation would expand Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit job discrimination against individuals based on their sexual orientation. ENDA recognizes that an individual’s sexual orientation has no bearing on that person’s ability to perform their job. It says that employers should not be allowed to stigmatize an entire group of individuals based on this irrelevant criteria.

In November, 2007 the House passed this important civil rights measure. During the coming year we will be urging the Senate to approve similar legislation.

Action

Legal Services Corporation

The Legal Services Corporation (LSC), created by Congress in 1974, helps provide low-income Americans with access to the civil justice system. LSC-funded programs assist poor people with a wide range of legal issues, including housing, domestic problems, and obtaining government benefits. A large majority of legal aid clients are women and a significant part of the lawyers’ caseloads involve domestic abuse against women with children.

The National Organization of Legal Services Workers, UAW Local 2320, represents attorneys, paralegals, and support staff at many of the 138 LSC-funded programs across the country, as well as those at many other legal aid programs that do not receive funding from LSC. Congress appropriates money annually to LSC, which in turn distributes grants to independent legal services and legal aid programs in all 50 states. Each year, the UAW advocates in Congress for increased funding for LSC.

The Republican Contract with America included a goal of eliminating the Legal Services Corporation entirely. In 1995, the first year the Republicans controlled Congress, they slashed LSC’s budget by over one third. As a consequence of this and subsequent cuts in LSC’s funding, at least 80 percent of the legal needs of poor people are currently unmet.

In addition to slashing funding, Republican opponents of LSC added “strings” to the federal funds that severely restrict the activities of LSC-funded programs. Most egregiously, LSC-funded programs are not allowed to use money they raise from private sources to perform prohibited services, such as aiding undocumented workers with wage claims against agribusiness employers. The UAW opposes this “private money restriction” and will continue to work with allies to have it lifted.

LSC supporters in Congress and outside, including the UAW, fought to save the program over a decade ago and have been working since then to increase the federal funding level. When Democrats took control of Congress in January 2007, they gave an increase to LSC in the FY 2007 appropriations. However, at the time this paper was written, it was still unclear how funding for the LSC would fare in the final appropriations measures for FY 2008. The UAW continues to believe that funding for LSC needs to be increased. Thus, during 2008 we will continue to push for additional funding for LSC and to remove the private money restriction.

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