ACLU to host town hall on civil rights issues

Nov. 28--BLOOMINGTON -- The work of monitoring the well-being of individual civil liberties since the election of President Trump is never ending, according to the executive director of the Illinois chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

"It's been a response to chaos. It makes it very hard to be strategic," said Colleen Connell, director of the statewide organization that has seen its membership spike from 15,000 to 75,000 in the past year.

Connell and the ACLU is bringing its "We the People Listening Tour" to The Chateau Hotel and Conference Center in Bloomington. The event is 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday.

The rapid pace of policy changes by the Trump administration makes it difficult to follow certain issues, but several key constitutional rights remain a concern, said Connell.

Immigration, women's reproductive rights, and First Amendment rights, including religious freedoms, are high on the ACLU priority list.

The president's inner circle of advisers and supporters have helped shape an agenda on such major issues, said Connell.

"There's more method to Trump's madness than what's apparent from the daily tweets and disruptions. You're seeing a hostility toward our Constitutional structure that protects our individual rights," she said.

In Illinois, the ACLU worked in the past year to support legislation to protect access to abortions and a bill to allow transgender and intersex people to change the gender marker on their birth certificates. The group also has "an ambitious criminal justice reform agenda" for Illinois in 2018, said Connell.

Follow Edith Brady-Lunny on Twitter: @pg_blunny

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