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For Immediate Release
February, 12 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Tuesday February, 12 2019, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
ACLU Files Federal Lawsuit Challenging New Hampshire Law Targeting Student Voters
Concord, NH
Concord, NH - The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of New Hampshire filed a federal lawsuit today challenging a New Hampshire law that unconstitutionally restricts the right to vote for students, young people, and those new to the state.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of two Dartmouth College students who will be required to pay for New Hampshire driver's licenses if they vote in the next election. If they don't, they could face criminal penalties. The law, HB 1264, burdens their right to vote and acts as a "poll tax" by requiring new voters to shift their home state driver's licenses and registrations to New Hampshire -- which can add up to hundreds of dollars -- solely for exercising their right to vote.
"Under this law, I have to pay to change my California license to be a New Hampshire one. If I vote and don't change my license within 60 days, I could even be charged with a misdemeanor offense with up to one year in jail. Make no mistake -- this is meant to deter young people from participating in our elections, and students are an important voting bloc here," said Maggie Flaherty, one of the student plaintiffs.
The lawsuit cites a violation of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971. Its aim was not only to allow young people to vote, but also to encourage voting by eliminating obstacles.
"Some politicians are clearly terrified of the youth vote," said Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "That doesn't give them the right to create barriers."
College students' right to vote in New Hampshire has been under attack for decades. As far back as 1972, the ACLU successfully challenged a law that tried to stop college students from voting if they planned to leave the state after graduation.
"Our laws should ensure that it's easy for eligible people to vote -- not put up red tape and require hundreds of dollars in fees," said Henry Klementowicz, staff attorney with the ACLU of New Hampshire. "Sadly, this is the latest in a string of laws New Hampshire has enacted making voting more complicated, time consuming, and, with HB1264, expensive."
The lawsuit, Casey v. Gardner, was filed in U.S. District Court in Concord. It names Secretary of State William Gardner and Attorney General Gordon MacDonald as defendants.
The complaint is at:
More information is at: https://www.aclu.org/cases/casey-v-gardner
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Acting IRS Chief Out Over 'Unconscionable' Deal to Share Taxpayer Data With ICE
"The Trump administration's political efforts to use immigrants' tax data against them should send chills down the spine of every U.S. taxpayer who disagrees with this administration," said one watchdog.
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The acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service is reportedly expected to resign over a new agreement that would allow the tax agency to give immigration authorities access to highly sensitive data to aid U.S. President Donald Trump's lawless mass deportation campaign.
Numerous outlets reported late Tuesday that Acting IRS Commissioner Melanie Krause and other top agency officials intend to leave their positions imminently, news that comes in the heat of tax season. Krause is the third person to lead the IRS since the start of Trump's second term, and the president's pick to lead the agency, Billy Long, has yet to receive a Senate confirmation hearing.
Central to Krause's decision to leave her role was reportedly a deal between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who oversees the IRS, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Under the deal, a redacted version of which was disclosed in a Monday court filing, ICE officials "can ask the IRS for information about people who have been ordered to leave the United States or whom they are otherwise investigating," The New York Timesreported. The newspaper characterized the agreement as "a fundamental departure from decades of practice at the tax collector, which has sought to keep information submitted by undocumented immigrants confidential."
"Undermining the legal protections for sensitive taxpayer information is dangerous, and Krause's resignation signals the severity of this unconscionable move by the Trump administration."
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said in a statement that Krause's impending resignation "highlights concerns about the ethics and legality of the deal." The Public Citizen Litigation Group is representing advocacy groups that are suing the Trump administration in an effort to prevent ICE from accessing taxpayer information.
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The Washington Postreported that the deal comes after Treasury Department officials "sought to circumvent IRS executives so immigration authorities could access private taxpayer information," efforts that "largely excluded Krause's input."
Krause found out about the deal between Bessent and Noem "after representatives from the Treasury Department released it to Fox News," according to the Post.
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U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, warned over the weekend that "even though the Trump administration claims it's focused on undocumented immigrants, it's obvious that they do not care when they make mistakes and ruin the lives of legal residents and American citizens in the process."
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A spokesperson for the news agency said the ruling "affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation."
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A federal judge appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump during his first term ruled Tuesday that the White House cannot cut off The Associated Press' access to the Republican leader because of the news agency's refusal to use his preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico.
"About two months ago, President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press did not follow suit. For that editorial choice, the White House sharply curtailed the AP's access to coveted, tightly controlled media events with the president," wrote Judge Trevor N. McFadden, who is based in Washington, D.C.
Specifically, according to the news outlet, "the AP has been blocked since February 11 from being among the small group of journalists to cover Trump in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One, with sporadic ability to cover him at events in the East Room."
The AP responded to the restrictions by suing White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich, and Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, "seeking a preliminary injunction enjoining the government from excluding it because of its viewpoint," McFadden noted in his 41-page order. "Today, the court grants that relief."
The judge explained that "this injunction does not limit the various permissible reasons the government may have for excluding journalists from limited-access events. It does not mandate that all eligible journalists, or indeed any journalists at all, be given access to the president or nonpublic government spaces. It does not prohibit government officials from freely choosing which journalists to sit down with for interviews or which ones' questions they answer. And it certainly does not prevent senior officials from publicly expressing their own views."
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McFadden blocked his own order from taking effect before next week, giving the Trump administration time to respond or appeal. Still, AP spokesperson Lauren Easton said Tuesday that "we are gratified by the court's decision."
"Today’s ruling affirms the fundamental right of the press and public to speak freely without government retaliation," Easton added. "This is a freedom guaranteed for all Americans in the U.S. Constitution."
NPRreported that "an AP reporter and photographer were turned back from joining a reporting pool on a presidential motorcade early Tuesday evening, almost two hours after the decision came down."
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"The AEA has only ever been a power invoked in time of war, and plainly only applies to warlike actions," the lawsuit asserts.
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The ACLU and allied groups filed a lawsuit Tuesday in a bid to stop U.S. President Donald Trump from "abusing the Alien Enemies Act"—an 18th-century law only ever invoked during wartime—to deport foreign nationals to a prison in El Salvador with allegedly rampant human rights abuses.
According to a statement, the ACLU and New York Civil Liberties Union, "in partnership with the Legal Aid Society whose clients are plaintiffs in the litigation, filed an emergency lawsuit this morning in federal court in New York to again halt removals under the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) for people within that court's judicial district."
The lawsuit—which names Trump, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other officials as plaintiffs—follows Monday's 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court
ruling that largely reversed a lower court's decision blocking the deportation of Venezuelan nationals to the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador.
BREAKING: Today the NYCLU and @aclu.org filed an emergency lawsuit to ensure the Trump administration does not deport people under the Alien Enemies Act without due process. No one should face the horrifying prospect of lifelong imprisonment without a fair hearing, let alone in another country.
— NYCLU (@nyclu.org) April 8, 2025 at 11:00 AM
While the high court said the Trump administration can resume deportations under the 1798 AEA, the justices included the caveat that people subject to such removals must be afforded due process under the law.
"The AEA has only ever been a power invoked in time of war, and plainly only applies to warlike actions," the ACLU argued in the new lawsuit. "It cannot be used here against nationals of a country—Venezuela—with whom the United States is not at war, which is not invading the United States, and which has not launched a predatory incursion into the United States."
Not only has Trump sent foreign nationals—including at least one wrongfully deported man—to CECOT, he has also floated the idea of sending U.S. citizens there at the invitation of right-wing Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, who is scheduled to visit the White House next week.
This, despite widespread reports of serious human rights violations at the facility and throughout El Salvador in general.
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