Friend –

Last week, many of us saw and heard fireworks displays celebrating the birth of this nation's freedom. To me, these displays illuminated the stark difference between America's asserted ideals of independence and equality, and the lived experience of tens of thousands of individuals every single year.

It is shameful that 150 years after slavery was purportedly abolished, the California State Constitution still allows for the enslavement of humans as a "punishment" for crimes.

At the end of June, our legislature passed The End Slavery in California Act (ACA 8), which means the measure to end forced labor in our prisons and jails will be on the statewide ballot in the fall.

This campaign has not been easy, but we do not sit out the difficult fights. We leaned on you for grassroots tactics like phone calls, emails, text banking, and rallies. You traveled to the Capitol on Lobby Day and met with legislators in their districts. The ACA 8 campaign was covered by Politico, Cal Matters, Los Angeles Times, ABC, and more.

We never would have reached these milestones without the leadership of the more than 30 organizations that comprise the ACA 8 Coalition and all of the ACLU members in California, like you. Every time you wrote, called, and met with your lawmakers, telling them to vote yes on ACA 8, it moved us one step closer to this legislative victory and one step closer to ending forced labor in our prisons and jails.

ACA 8 will soon be presented to the voters as Proposition 6. On November 5, every registered voter in the state of California will be able to vote YES on Prop 6 so that incarcerated workers can no longer be forced to labor in unsafe conditions or be disciplined for calling off work to deal with injury or grief.

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you. California is one step closer to ending all forms of slavery in our state. No excuses. No exceptions.

Onward to victory,

Carmen-Nicole Cox
Pronouns: she, her, hers
Director of Government Affairs, ACLU California Action