News & Commentary

Data from 2014 continues the trend of Nebraska law enforcement pulling over a disproportionate number of people of color.

The ACLU of Nebraska has dug through hundreds of pages of records about Nebraska’s attempts to obtain lethal injection drugs.

As a retired law-enforcement officer with over 26 years of experience, I know that law enforcement officers must make split second decisions that frequently can save lives. These decisions can also endanger lives. With so much at stake, it is important that our officers on the street have robust training to help them make these split second decisions and that communities have full faith and trust in the officers tasked with keeping our communities safe.

In Nebraska, we're taught to treat everyone like our neighbors. That should include transgender residents of the Cornhusker state. Take a moment to meet transgender people who call Nebraska home.

As working moms, we strongly believe that no pregnant working mom in Nebraska should have to choose between her health and the economic stability of her family. No matter where any voter falls on the political spectrum, this should be an issue we can all agree on.

2015 is a legislative session to remember. Thanks to strong independent nonpartisan leadership in our unique Nebraska legislature, the voices of tens of thousands of Nebraskans, and policy experts at the ACLU and many partners, historic progress was made on a variety of critical civil liberties issues.

Maria Marquez Hernandez just graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a degree in psychology, but she still can't give her younger sister a ride. That's because she's a Dreamer — brought to the U.S. by her parents and raised undocumented as a child.

Nebraska recently made national headlines when someone filed a lawsuit here against all "homosexuals." While this lawsuit is clearly bunk and has already been dismissed, as a Nebraskan who is fighting for equal treatment of LGBT people in my home state, I would be remiss if I didn't use this as an opportunity to share the stories of those who are fighting alongside us.

Last month, the police chief of Lincoln, Nebraska announced that the security cameras watching over the city’s downtown bar scene have not proven effective in his department’s efforts to stem criminal activity. Police Chief Jim Peschong said that the recordings hadn’t helped investigators either identify new suspects or bolster evidence against current ones. Peschong also stated that the cameras hadn’t lowered crime in their vicinity: according to Lincoln Police statistics, there were 128 assaults within 500 feet of the cameras last year, numbers that are on par with the department’s five-year average.