A questionnaire seeking to gather local candidates' positions on civil liberties-related questions was sent last month to all congressional, legislative, city, and school board candidates who will appear on the November ballot in San Diego and Imperial counties.
In the attached tables that capture the responses we received, the ACLU position is shown in the top row. Candidate responses that are in agreement with the ACLU position are indicated in red, as are "No Response" replies.
If you have a question regarding any of the responses, we encourage you to contact the candidates directly. Take the time to examine their stances on the issues that are important to you and the ACLU. If they haven't responded to our survey or don't indicate how they stand on our issues in their campaign literature, call and ask them about their positions! Let them know what issues are important to you--and that you vote!
1. FIRST AMENDMENT
As an elected official, would you ever attempt to prohibit the exercise of free speech or ideas by an individual or organization that either you or your constituents disagreed with?
2. GOVERNMENT SEARCHES
Do you support or oppose government searches of private citizens--including monitoring emails, wiretapping phones, searching homes and offices, and seizing personal data--without probable cause or a court order?
3. ROE V. WADE
Do you support or oppose the right of women to obtain a medically safe, legal abortion under the standards set forth by the U.S. Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade?
4. AGE-APPROPRIATE SEX EDUCATION
Do you support or oppose the teaching of responsible, age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education, including information about both abstinence and contraception in public schools?
5. MARRIAGE EQUALITY
Do you support the right of all individuals to marry, including those in the LGBT community?
6. ALTERNATIVE PENALTIES
Taking into account the state's budget crisis, the overcrowding of jails, and the demonstrated ineffectiveness of jail as a deterrent to drug use, would you support or oppose reducing sentences and imposing alternative penalties for non-violent drug offenses?
7. DEATH PENALTY ALTERNATIVES
Given that the bipartisan California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice has estimated that the death penalty system costs taxpayers ten times--and could cost more than twenty times--the cost of sentencing someone to permanent imprisonment (life without parole), and given that no one sentenced to permanent imprisonment has ever been released, would you support or oppose replacing the death penalty with permanent imprisonment?
8. LOCAL ENFORCEMENT OF IMMIGRATION LAWS
Do you support or oppose redirecting local police resources from local crime fighting to the enforcement of federal immigration law?
9. UNDOCUMENTED RIGHTS
The Constitution protects all persons, not just citizens, from warrantless searches, and guarantees their right to due process under the law. Would you support policies that violate this tenet?
10. EDUCATION EQUALITY
Given that 85% of jobs in California are now classified as skilled and in ten years, 75% of jobs will require at least some college or community college training, and given that fewer than 4 in 10 high school graduates in San Diego County, and fewer than 2 in 10 graduates in Imperial County currently complete college preparatory curriculum, would you support or oppose making college preparatory curriculum the default curriculum?
