The American
Civil Liberties Union announced by far the largest
fundraising campaign in its 88-year history Monday, eyeing a
dramatic expansion of its work on social justice
issues in relatively conservative states such as Texas
and Florida.
The campaign's
goal is $335 million, with $258 million already raised
through behind-the-scenes solicitations over the past year,
ACLU executive director Anthony Romero said.
Major donors
include billionaire financier George Soros, who gave $12
million through his Open Society Institute.
''The purpose is
to build a civil liberties infrastructure in the middle
of the country -- where battleground states are often
underresourced and our efforts are most needed,''
Romero said.
He cited issues
such as immigrants' rights, gay rights, police brutality
and opposition to the death penalty as causes that would be
pursued vigorously as the ACLU expanded in heartland
states. At present, the ACLU's biggest offices are in
the Northeast, the Pacific states, and Illinois;
targets for expansion include Michigan, Missouri,
Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, and Tennessee, with
even the smallest ACLU affiliates in line to get extra
funding to hire new attorneys and launch new advocacy
programs.
Romero said the
ACLU envisions more than doubling the staffs of its Texas
and Florida operations, and its full-time work force
nationwide -- including its headquarters and state
affiliates -- would increase from roughly 800 to about
1,000. Numerous new satellite offices would be opened.
''We're going to
build these offices into vibrant, muscular civil
liberties machines, in places where our issues matter
most,'' he said. ''We've done great work in those
states, but we've always been the David to the
government's Goliath.''
Romero said the
fund-raising campaign was designed to capitalize on a
favorable climate for the ACLU. Since he became executive
director in 2001, its annual budget has tripled to
$107 million, and its membership has nearly doubled to
more than 550,000, Romero said.
''It's patently
evident that the best fund-raiser for the ACLU has been
George Bush and his cadre of cronies,'' Romero said. ''If
the Republicans loses control of Congress and the
White House, we can be sure religious right will be
much more active on the state level -- our work will be
critical there.''
Officials of two
conservative legal groups often at odds with the ACLU
were not pleased by the fund-raising announcement, which
came during the ACLU's annual membership conference in
Washington.
''The most
dangerous organization in America is trying to become more
dangerous,'' said Mike Johnson, senior legal counsel for the
Alliance Defense Fund.
Mathew Staver,
founder of the Florida-based Liberty Counsel, said the
ACLU ''already has been an antifamily and in some cases
anti-religious liberty and anti-life organization.''
''Any future
expansion would simply increase its destructive presence and
be concerning to people of conservative, moral values,''
Staver said.
The ACLU said its
biggest previous fund-raising campaign, to expand its
endowment, ended in 2002 with a haul of about $52
million. (David Crary, AP)
