Less than four months before the November 2024 presidential election, the Nebraska Secretary of State issued a directive embracing a non-binding opinion issued by the state Attorney General that would essentially reinstate permanent felony disenfranchisement and re-disenfranchise tens of thousands of Nebraska citizens. This directive is violative of both the Nebraska Constitution and several state statutes, and urgent relief is needed to avoid mass disenfranchisement of an entire class of Nebraska citizens.

This case involves a state constitutional challenge to the Utah Legislature’s 2021 redistricting plan, which was drawn to entrench the majority political party’s power and to discriminate against Utahns whose political expression aligns with an opposition political party. The ACLU and the ACLU of Utah filed an amicus brief in support of the challenge in the Utah Supreme Court, explaining why the redistricting map violates Utahns’ free-expression rights and why courts have the authority to block the map as unconstitutional.

This case concerns whether prosecutors can admit evidence that a person exercised their right to decide whether to terminate their pregnancy as proof of intent for murder. Here, the prosecution’s use of this evidence at Moira Akers’ trial denied her due process, resulting in an unjust conviction and a 30-year prison term. The ACLU’s Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Maryland, filed an amicus brief arguing that allowing admission of this evidence not only violated Ms. Akers’ rights but chills the right of all Marylanders to freely decide whether to continue or end their pregnancies. Ms. Akers’ case was granted certiorari and is now before the Maryland Supreme Court.

This case in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asks whether the Right to Know Law (“RTKL”), 65 P.S. §§ 67.101 - 67.3104, requires the disclosure of school board members’ social media posts on their private Facebook accounts relating to the propriety of a display of certain books in the school library. This case is among one of the first state supreme court cases addressing whether Facebook posts constitute records. The ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative, alongside the ACLU of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania attorney Brian Cagle, filed a brief arguing that RTKL’s text and structure require the conclusion that posts are “records,” and thus are subject to disclosure.