Staff Attorney, Voting Rights
LOCATION
Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, Kern
DEPARTMENT
Advocacy
DEADLINE DATE
Open until filled.
ABOUT THE ACLU FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Founded in 1923, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California (“ACLU SoCal”) has been at the forefront of many major efforts to protect civil liberties, civil rights, and equal justice in California. Principled and nonpartisan, ACLU SoCal has offices in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire (San Bernardino), and Kern County (Bakersfield). ACLU SoCal tackles a vast array of issues, including the criminal legal system, police practices, First Amendment rights, voting rights, gender equity, reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, education equity, and economic justice.
POSITION OVERVIEW
ACLU SoCal’s Advocacy Department seeks a Staff Attorney for the Voting Rights project. The Staff Attorney will help develop and litigate state and federal cases; help create and implement legislative and policy advocacy campaigns that protect and expand voting rights and ballot access; engage in public education; and provide technical assistance to coalitions, community partners, government officials, and government bodies.
The Staff Attorney will advocate the full range of voting rights issues on which the ACLU SoCal engages. Litigation, advocacy, and public education campaigns might include: responding to emerging threats to representation for voters of color in the absence of federal Voting Rights Act protections; protecting and strengthening state and local voting rights protections, including the California Voting Rights Act and other pro-voter policies; responding to election interference and abuses of governmental power, including unlawful ballot seizures, attempts to access unredacted voter files, and restrictive election measures such as local voter ID laws; advancing election protection efforts; and providing legal support to ensure a full and accurate 2030 Census count, including by defending against efforts to exclude immigrant communities from the count. Although the focus will be to protect and advance voting rights, the Staff Attorney may also work on other issues such as open government and protecting and expanding freedoms of speech, association, and religion.
The Staff Attorney will report to a Senior Voting Rights Staff Attorney and the director of the ACLU SoCal First Amendment and Democracy Project and will work also within the ACLU statewide Democracy, Speech, and Technology team. The Staff Attorney will also work with other attorneys, policy advocates and organizers from other ACLU SoCal Projects as needed and work collaboratively with the Communications Department on campaigns.
Travel throughout the Southern California region and occasional trips to Sacramento may be required.
We recognize that ACLU SoCal’s integrated advocacy approach in which advocacy staff utilize diverse tactics to advance our goals, including litigating, drafting legislation, and lobbying elected officials, working in coalition with grassroots organizations, and engaging in public education campaigns including report writing and issue-based trainings, is not typical. While candidates must meet the minimum qualifications, we do not expect candidates to have experience performing the entire range of tasks that would comprise the job responsibilities for this position. We encourage interested candidates to consider the transferable skills that they have developed, particularly those related to written and oral communication, collective action, and advocacy on behalf of others—and assess whether they are willing to gain experience with new job functions—when applying to this position.
This is a full-time, exempt bargaining unit position in the National Organization of Legal Services Workers union.