Yesterday a federal court in Tallahassee blocked enforcement of a key portion of Florida’s new voting laws – the section which placed new restrictions and financial penalties on civic groups which undertook voter registration drives.

The new law was so bad that groups such as The League of Women Voters stopped registering voters entirely and two teachers were threatened with fines for registering students in their classrooms under the guise of cracking down on ‘voter fraud.’

The ACLU was part of the legal team representing The League of Women Voters, Rock the Vote and other impacted groups in Constitutional challenge to the law. We argued, in part, that restricting the rights of individuals and organizations to engage in the political process without a compelling state interest was a violation of First Amendment. The judge agreed.

In the ruling the Judge wrote, “The short deadline, coupled with substantial penalties for noncompliance, make voter registration drives a risky business.  If the goal is to discourage voter registration drives and thus make it harder for new voters to register, the 48-hour deadline may succeed.”

Clearly, as we argued from the very considering on this law in the Legislature, the goal was to make it harder for people to register to vote. And limited those opportunities has a real impact on the people who do voter registration as well as the voters and communities they engage.

Other parts of the law made it harder to vote and harder to have your vote counted. Those provisions are also under review in another case where ACLU is part of the legal team. This one is before a federal court in the District of Columbia and will determine whether the changes are legal under the U.S. Voting Rights Act because of their disproportionate impact on racial and language minorities.

Those changes and Florida’s recent and deeply flawed efforts to remove legally registered voters from the voting roles are part of a pattern in Florida to make voting harder and more complicated.

But the decision yesterday was a significant step in re-establishing the rule of law of the weight of constitutional protections in Florida’s election procedures. As the judge also wrote yesterday, “Soliciting an application [to register to vote] is core First Amendment speech.”

Yes, it is.

I’m a lawyer, not a literary critic. I can’t predict whether E.L. James’ “Fifty Shades of Grey” trilogy has literary merit or is just a blip on the radar screen of popular culture.  Have I read the books?  Sure.  Research is central to a lawyer’s work.  Do I care who’ll play Anastasia Steele or Christian Grey in the film version of the trilogy?  Nope.

But I care about the First Amendment, and I know censorship when I see it.  When the Brevard public library removed from circulation nineteen copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, based on one individual’s misguided sense of decorum, a resounding chorus of “Really?” was heard across the country:  in 2012, would a public library, an arm of the government, really strip a book from its collection on the ground that it was “semi-pornographic”?  Mind you, this is a public library that carries the Zane chronicles, including Gettin’ Buck Wild:  Sex Chronicles II (Zane Does Incredible, Erotic Things). Really.

In Brevard County, “Really?” became “Hell, no,” as men and women, card-carrying members of the Brevard County Library System demanded that the books be returned to the shelves.  On May 24, the ACLU of Florida and the National Coalition Against Censorship sent a letter to the Brevard County Commissioners, reminding them that the County’s removal of “Fifty Shades of Grey” from circulation violated the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Section 4 of the Florida Constitution and exposed the County Commission to potential liability.

Yesterday, on May 28, the County’s Communications Director announced that “The Brevard County Library System will return ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ to its library shelves.”  The Library Services Director, who had made the initial decision to scrap the books, remarked “We have always stood against censorship.”  Really.

But all’s well that ends well:  score one for the First Amendment.  “Laters, baby.”

Apopka is a small community outside Orlando that is on the verge of being consumed by Central Florida sprawl and suburban planning but its agrarian roots and the impact of the Hispanic community are easy to see.

A stone’s throw from Apopka High School is the HOPE CommUnity Center which, “is dedicated to empowerment of Central Florida's immigrant and working poor communities through Education, Advocacy and Spiritual Growth.”

As a landmark for immigrant families, it was a perfect setting for yesterday’s ACLU of Florida press conference at which we issued a report card on the unsettling practice of school districts not making clear that Social Security numbers (SSN) are not required for enrollment in public schools. In spite of federal law requiring it, many school districts, including several in Central Florida, are still asking for SSN on enrollment forms without stating the information is voluntary.

The result is that immigrant families may have to choose between sending kids to school and what they think could be in inquiry into the citizenship status of those children or other family members.

It’s would be a tragic choice especially considering no such choice is necessary. Since schools don’t need a SSN to enroll, there is no reason to put parents and families through that difficulty.

After surveying all 67 Florida districts, the ACLU found nearly half of those districts – 30 in all – received a grade of “C” or lower in how they ask for and handle SSN on enrollment forms. Eleven districts, including a handful in Central Florida, failed outright by making no effort whatsoever to comply with federal law on the use of SSN.

Based on our report card and press conference, several districts including Orange County (which received an “F”), said they would re-examine their enrollment form for next school year.