This past weekend, the national board of the ACLU convened an emergency meeting to respond to the events at the Capitol building on January 6. After hours of deliberation, the board voted unanimously to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump—for the second time—just days before his term is set to end. The resolution published by the National Board states “President Trump has … violated his oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and poses a ‘grave and imminent threat to civil liberties.'” On Monday, Congress followed suit, filing an article of impeachment.

“Impeachment is important even if the president is not removed, because I think what the impeachment does is it provides accountability,” this week’s podcast guest, ACLU President Susan Herman told listeners. “It stands as a record that this president has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Herman, who is the Ruth Bader Ginsberg Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School, joined us to discuss how the ACLU came to this historic decision, how the impeachment process works, and what it may mean for the future.

Why the ACLU Called for Trump's Impeachment

Why the ACLU Called for Trump's Impeachment

This past weekend the national board of the ACLU convened an emergency meeting to respond to the events at the Capitol building on January 6th. After hours of deliberation, the board voted unanimously to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump, j...

This past weekend the national board of the ACLU convened an emergency meeting to respond to the events at the Capitol building on January 6th. After hours of deliberation, the board voted unanimously to call for the impeachment of Donald Trump, j...

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The post was first published in Florida Phoenix.

Florida presents an ever-changing political landscape. One only needs to study Florida outcomes in general elections the past 20 years to confirm that.

What doesn’t change is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida’s commitment to civil liberties, social justice and citizen participation in our state, despite shifting political winds. We don’t back candidates from any political party, ever. What we champion is the exercise of democracy and equality.

Despite opposition and obstructionism by state leaders — led by Gov. Ron DeSantis — Floridians embrace the ideal of building a Florida that works for everyone. They have demonstrated that many times but especially in 2018 when 65 percent of Florida voters approved Amendment 4, which restored the right to vote to some 1.4 million returning citizens.

The governor and his allies then undermined the will of the people by imposing a poll tax on those would-be voters. But knowing that Floridians are with us, and that we are on the right side of history, we will continue to champion civil rights and liberties. In the face of inaction and oppression from state leadership, our call will be, “We Make The Way.”

The ACLU of Florida is creating a movement that will protect and advance our civil rights for generations to come. To establish the groundwork for lasting change, our goal is to engage at least 2.2 million citizens to vote and advocate for our shared values. We are pursuing an aggressive, multifaceted, statewide strategy to activate this electorate, build long-term power, and create lasting impact.

This year we will work at the state level to advance equality and justice, but ACLU of Florida staff, volunteers and supporters will also increase our activism directly at the grassroots level. It is time to bring our state’s policies in line with the values of our communities.

We will continue to aggressively defend voting rights in 2021. In addition to advocating for the right to vote for returning citizens, we will push for expanded early voting days and hours so that as many Floridians who are eligible to vote can exercise their right at the ballot box. We will press all Florida counties to improve their signature matching methods so that perfectly valid vote-by-mail ballots are not rejected by local voting officials.

Florida’s immigrant population is vital to our economy and our culture, but in recent years  Gov. DeSantis and other state leaders, promoting the virulent anti-immigrant rhetoric spewing from the White House, turned against immigrant communities.

The passage of Senate Bill 168 in 2019, which requires local law enforcement to act as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and enforce detainer requests, has exacerbated a climate of fear and intimidation for immigrants in Florida.

In 2021, the ACLU of Florida will again push for the repeal of Gov. DeSantis’s SB 168 law as well as proactively seek to strengthen protections for immigrants at the local level. We will also continue to call for the repeal of other accords between local jurisdictions and federal immigration authorities that violate the rights of immigrants, such as 287(g) and Warrant Service Officer agreements.

The cry for criminal justice reform echoed nationwide in 2020. What was Gov. DeSantis’ response? He proposed legislation that at best criminalizes the First Amendment right to protest, and at worst, further perpetuates and institutionalizes white supremacy and violent policing.

His proposal is undemocratic and hostile to Americans’ shared values. Gov. DeSantis has one goal: to silence Floridians who want to see justice for Black lives lost to racialized violence and brutality at the hands of law enforcement. The ACLU will defend the constitutional right to protest of all Floridians.

We will also continue to push for criminal justice reforms in Florida, starting with an increase in rehabilitation credits, which will encourage incarcerated people to participate in educational, vocational and self-improvement courses that decrease recidivism, make our communities safer, reunite families, and save Florida taxpayers hundreds of million of dollars wasted on mass incarceration.

Bipartisan groups of elected officials in other states — including our neighbors in the South — have been making these reforms for years; Gov. DeSantis and Florida legislative leaders now have the opportunity to follow their lead.

The ACLU will also campaign to end mandatory minimum sentences and will press state attorneys to adopt sentencing reform. We will go to the courts to try to block the use of unaffordable bail and will campaign to end driver’s license suspensions for non-driving offenses.

We can create a Florida that is more just, more equal, and more free. To see the path toward justice, democracy, and equality in Florida, we must make our own way. We Make The Way — and we can do it together. “WE MAKE THE WAY” TOWARD A MORE FREE AND EQUAL FLORIDA.

In its first decision on abortion since Justice Barrett’s confirmation, the Supreme Court granted the Trump administration’s request to reinstate a harmful FDA requirement that forces patients to risk unnecessary COVID-19 exposure as a condition of accessing mifepristone, a safe and effective medication used to end early pregnancies and treat early miscarriages. As a result, even as COVID-19 infection and death rates soar across the nation, patients are again required to travel in person to a health center for no medical reason — just to pick up a pill and sign a form.

Since the summer, this harmful requirement had been blocked by a federal court — meaning that for months, eligible patients were able to receive their medication by mail without making an unnecessary in-person trip. And health care professionals were able to safely provide quality care to their patients during the pandemic, as they do with other medications.  As one health care provider shared,

“[A] patient called who was so ill from her pregnancy that she had not slept or eaten in 5 days and said she was ‘going out of her mind.’ Due to our reduced capacity for in-person visits during the pandemic, the first available in-person medication abortion appointment was not for another 5 days. In addition, coming to the health center for her appointment would have been very risky for this patient: she had significant risk factors for severe disease from COVID-19. … She told me she was so afraid of contracting COVID- 19 that she had quit her job … to avoid viral exposure and had been isolating at home ever since. She was thrilled to learn of the delivery option. She was extremely grateful that she could have her telehealth visit on that same day, have her medication sent for delivery the next day instead of having to wait to come in person, and avoid the risk of exposure to the coronavirus as she traveled to our clinic to pick up the medication.”

Now, all of that is over. 

With the court’s ruling, the Trump administration is once again free to subject patients seeking abortion and miscarriage care to a one-size-fits-all travel mandate that exposes them and their families to needless viral risk — even though similar in-person requirements have been suspended for other far less safe medications, like opioids, during the public health emergency. Despite the clear scientific and public health consensus that unnecessary in-person visits for medical care should be avoided during the pandemic, the administration has ignored repeated calls by leading medical and public health authorities to do the same for mifepristone — which has an excellent 20 year safety record — endangering patients in service of its anti-abortion agenda. 

As the U.S. approaches 400,000 COVID deaths, this is nothing short of unconscionable. And the Supreme Court’s ruling is particularly dangerous for people of color and people with low incomes, who have always been most harmed by burdensome restrictions on medication abortion, and who are now suffering severe complications and dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately high rates. For those who rely on public transportation or help from others to travel, as many people with low incomes do, making an in-person trip is particularly risky.  There is no excuse for such government-mandated harm.

Luckily, the Biden-Harris administration can quickly reverse this dangerous course. 

The new administration should immediately suspend enforcement of the in-person requirement for the duration of the pandemic, consistent with the government’s approach to other medications. President-elect Biden has pledged that his administration will follow the science in its response to COVID-19, and this is a critical part of that commitment. Abortion is essential, time-sensitive health care, and no one should have to risk needless exposure to a life-threatening virus to access it.

In addition, the FDA should conduct a comprehensive review of all current restrictions on mifepristone. The in-person requirement is part of a package of outdated, medically unnecessary restrictions on this safe, effective medication that is long overdue for an FDA review. Well before the pandemic, leading medical authorities were already calling for permanently lifting these restrictions because they have no medical basis and provide no benefit to patients — all they do is create barriers to care. It is time the FDA listen to those experts and re-evaluate the restrictions on mifepristone so that patients’ access to safe medication abortion is always based on the latest evidence.

The Supreme Court’s latest decision is cruel and indefensible — but, fortunately, fixable.  Now it’s up to the Biden-Harris administration to ensure that science, not politics, determines patient access to this time-sensitive, essential care — both during the COVID-19 public health emergency and beyond.